California Wildfire Expert Claims He Was Fired for Being Jewish

Andrew Kerr of the Washington Free Beacon reports an interesting twist in the story of California wildfire politics.

Long-running accusations of anti-Semitism that for years dogged California’s troubled National Guard resurfaced at a crucial time for the force that is currently battling historic Los Angeles wildfires. A fired commander with extensive firefighting experience has filed a lawsuit alleging he’s now on the sidelines because he’s Jewish.

Brigadier General Jeffrey Magram is suing the state of California, Governor Gavin Newsom (D.), and Adjutant General Matthew Beevers, a Newsom appointee who was previously accused of referring to his Jewish subordinates as “kike lawyers.” Magram claims his dismissal was driven by anti-Semitic animus.

The California National Guard is the largest such force in the country, and 2,500 guard members (including some reinforcements from Nevada and Wyoming) are now battling the wildfires from the air and the ground, as well as helping with public safety. But the “scandal plagued” guard, as the Los Angeles Times calls it, has been bogged down by unseemly allegations of impropriety, including the coverup of an incident in which someone urinated in a guardswoman’s boot, indecent exposure at a restaurant, retaliation against whistleblowers, and the use of spy planes and fighter jets to monitor and intimidate protesters.

Magram’s ouster just over two years ago came after an inquiry found he used military personnel for personal tasks, among other infractions that the inquiry claimed compromised his leadership. He was one of five generals who were fired or retired under pressure amid ballooning scandals at the guard in the last few years. But in his lawsuit, Magram—who was not implicated in the more lurid scandals that dogged the guard—argues he was targeted in a smear campaign that overlooked a sterling record because he is Jewish.

Magram claims that Beevers, who orchestrated his firing, was retaliating against him for defending a fellow Jew from Beevers’s anti-Semitic rants.

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