The Department of Homeland Security is upholding the First Amendment rights of a staff member who has faced criticism for his social media posts and political remarks linked to the Capitol riot.

Before joining DHS, Eric Lendrum likened the political fallout conservatives faced from the January 6, 2021 rally to slavery and the Holocaust.

He slammed Democrats for ‘cowering’ under their desks as thousands of angry Americans descended on the Capitol that day.

Lendrum pointed out on his podcast, The Right Take, just a few days post-riot: ‘Seeing those Congress members, particularly the Democrats, hiding under their desks, donning those comical bubble masks, and then snapping selfies—there’s something immensely satisfying about it.’

In a 2021 blog piece on American Greatness, a conservative platform, he stated: ‘American conservatives are, at this moment, heading towards being just as shunned and isolated from mainstream society as Jews were in pre-Nazi Germany times.’

The junior-level speechwriter at DHS also shared anti-immigrant rhetoric on multiple platforms before joining the second Donald Trump administration.

During an episode of his podcast in October 2022, he supported the controversial ‘great replacement theory,’ which claims that the presence of nonwhite immigrants is reducing the global influence of white individuals.

When asked about the social media activities of a junior team member before joining the DHS, a department spokesperson refrained from providing specific comments. Instead, they directed the Daily Mail to the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Lnedrum did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on the reports detailing his online activity.  

Lendrum published on American Greatness until March 2025.

In his post-riot rant in 2021, he said conservative Americans are facing oppression like that faced by enslaved black people in America and Holocaust victims.

‘It has been said that the most surefire way to create an authoritarian regime is to completely dehumanize a significant portion of the population, so that their subsequent enslavement by the state will not face any larger resistance. It was true during slavery, it was true during the Holocaust, and it is true now,’ he wrote.

Lendrum has a relatively low profile, his employer and previous social media activity was first reported by NOTUS on Monday.

The last time Lendrum posted to his X account was on the president’s birthday on June 14 this year when he published an image of himself alongside Trump.

Lendrum has only 449 followers on X as of time of publication and appears to mostly use it recently to repost messages from Trump cabinet officials and allies.

But he has used his X account in the past to share anti-immigrant sentiments.

He expressed lament with a New York Post headline saying that veterans were kicked out of hotels to make way for providing shelter to illegal ‘migrants’ during President Joe Biden’s term.

‘They are not migrants. They are not ‘undocumented.’ They are an invading army. The largest invasion in American history,’ Lendrum wrote on May 13, 2023 in a post to X.

He added: ‘And what are you supposed to do with an invading army? Crush it, by any means necessary.’

Lendrum also claimed that asylum seekers are ‘scum.’

Before joining DHS, Lendrum also had a short stint as a press assistant at the Department of the Interior during Trump’s first term.

‘If I could work more closely with him, that is the one case in which I would ever go back into government work. Government work is not fun,’ Lendrum said in December 2022.

And now, he’s back in Washington, D.C. for Trump’s second term working for one of the largest and most influential agencies in the federal government.

A DHS speechwriter is responsible for preparing a myriad of public content for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her deputy. 

This includes ‘speeches, talking points, editorials, Congressional testimony, video scripts, web content and other written content,’ according to a description of the job.