UPDATE, 9:43 p.m.: During a lengthy email exchange on Saturday, Hamilton said her email account had been hacked, and that she “reached out” to Tanden on Friday evening “and explain[ed] the situation to her.” Hamilton also said she planned to look into the suspension of her Twitter account.
Peggy Hamilton, a member of the board of directors of the Greensboro Symphony, denies sending a profanity-laden email to Neera Tanden, but the email address Tanden screen-shotted is the same one used by the symphony board member for a 2016 arts conference in North Carolina.
A member of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra’s board of director’s apparently took issue with criticism of by Neera Tanden, a progressive policy wonk and former Hillary Clinton associate, of President Trump’s handling of the economy.
Following her Wednesday appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” Tanden tweeted a screenshot of a message received from one Peggy Hamilton, writing, “I have fan mail from my @hardball appearance, probably.”
The screenshot, which includes
Hamilton’s email address, includes the message: “You stupid fucking bitch. You
make no sense and hate our president. Go fuck yourself, media whore.”
Tanden, who was once described by Politico as “Hillary Clinton’s anger translator,” previously served as the top staffer in Clinton’s US Senate office, policy director for her 2008 presidential campaign and as an unofficial advisor for her 2016 presidential campaign. Today, Tanden holds the position of president of the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Among mild barbs lobbed at Trump on Wednesday, Tanden told Matthews: “A normal president that wasn’t so personally offensive and gross and racist would actually have higher approval ratings.”
The Greensboro Symphony Orchestra
website lists Hamilton as the vice co-chair for development on the executive
committee of its board of directors. A contact list published by the statewide
arts advocacy organization ARTS North Carolina from a 2016 conference includes
Hamilton’s name alongside the Greensboro Symphony with the same email address
that was published in Tanden’s tweet.
Hamilton could not be reached for
this story, and an email to the address tweeted by Tanden and published on the
ARTS North Carolina contact list bounced back.
Keyshia Haithcock, the director of development and public relations for the orchestra, said staff contacted Hamilton in response to an inquiry about the matter, and Hamilton responded that “she has no knowledge of this email.” Haithcock added, “She has however taken action to get this matter cleared up.
“As for the Greensboro Symphony
Orchestra, of course, the views and opinions expressed are not shared by the
GSO, our board of directors, or our sponsors and affiliates,” Haithcock said.
Haithcock said Hamilton had been “out of the country for the past two weeks.” A post on Hamilton’s Facebook page indicated she was in St. Petersburg, Russia with her husband on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Hamilton commented under the same post that she had returned home.
In a follow-up email, acknowledging questions raised about the fact that the email address in the message to Tanden and the email for Hamilton in connection with the symphony are identical, Haithcock said she passed along Triad City Beat‘s request for an interview to Hamilton.
Archived tweets recovered by Triad City Beat from before Hamilton’s
Twitter account was suspended for violation of terms reveal an ardent Trump supporter
who shares the president’s disdain for his Democratic critics.
In one of the last tweets before her
account was suspended, on June 7, Hamilton wrote, “You can’t even call him
President Trump, can you?” In May, Hamilton retweeted President Trump mocking House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s performance during a press conference.
Other re-tweets by Hamilton
highlight issues of immigration, demography and patriotism.
In April, she re-tweeted
conservative political analyst Oliver McGee accusing Democratic presidential
candidate Joe Biden of wanting “UNRELENTING IMMIGRATION until whites are
America’s minority!”
And in May, Hamilton re-tweeted a post by the account @DoingRight1, which suggested Christianity and Judaism should have primacy in American life while questioning the patriotism of US Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota. “Never once has 0ma/r put American Judeo-Christian values first,” the tweet reads. “Are you proud to be an American [sic]. You remind me off Michelle [sic].”
Hamilton has been an active
supporter of the Greensboro Symphony since relocating to the Greensboro area
from Kansas City in 1985, according to a 2013 item in the Guilford Woman magazine. She received the 2013 Barbara Cone Award
from the Greensboro Symphony Guild recognizing her as “someone who has exhibited
distinguished service in the advancement of music in the community” and in the
promotion of the symphony. The item went on to say that Hamilton has “arranged
all local transportation for guest artists and opened her home to visitors,”
and that she and her husband, David Hamilton, “were instrumental in establishing
the Maestro’s Terrace, which is the reception for sponsors of the concerts.”
The article concludes, “Most recently, she has been instrumental in updating the Guild’s website capabilities and furthering its presence on social media networks.”
Join the First Amendment Society, a membership that goes directly to funding TCB‘s newsroom.
We believe that reporting can save the world.
The TCB First Amendment Society recognizes the vital role of a free, unfettered press with a bundling of local experiences designed to build community, and unique engagements with our newsroom that will help you understand, and shape, local journalism’s critical role in uplifting the people in our cities.
All revenue goes directly into the newsroom as reporters’ salaries and freelance commissions.
Thank you for this timely reporting, but I’m sorry to see TCB tripping over the concept of profanity (in the headline). The statement in question was not profane at all, not even a suggestion of it. It was abusive, coarse, crude, foul, indecent, obscene, offensive, uncivil, vulgar — all that, certainly, but profane was one thing it wasn’t. To be profane, a statement has to invoke the sacred (God) — “serving to debase or defile what is holy” would be one way of putting it (Merriam-Webster). Taking the Name in vain, for example (remember the Jehovah scene in “Life of Brian”?). So, if whoever victimized Ms. Hamilton and wrote that unhinged screed under her name (I’m taking Ms. Hamilton at her word that she didn’t write it), had written, “Jesus Christ! You fucking bitch … etc.”, now that would be profane (as well as obscene, the “fucking” part, and, arguably, “bitch”). Or, “God damn you, you fucking bitch,” that would be profane (it would be cursing, too, a related rhetorical gambit that, like profanity and obscenity, violates America’s traditional family values). Or, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you are one fucking bitch” — mildly profane, in a quaint, nostalgic sort of way that I remember from my Catholic grandfather. But all those things Ms. Hamilton denies writing — “you fucking bitch,” “go fuck yourself,” and “media whore” — those are obscene, not profane. But everything else in the piece was spot on.
Bullshit, she’s an asshole.