* The Illinois Policy Institute confirmed this week it no longer supports 56th House District Republican candidate Ed Lapinski.

Lapinksi, who is the Elk Grove Township Republican Committeeman and is the Executive Secretary of the Cook County Republican Party, has been fending off accusations for months that he is a Holocaust denier, or worse.

The IPI has for years recruited Republican candidates to run in overwhelmingly Democratic districts. Lapinski is up against Rep. Michelle Mussman (D-Schaumburg) in a district won by Gov. JB Pritzker two years ago by almost 22 points.

Oops.

The group did not respond to a follow-up question about how Lapinski slipped through its vetting process. A House Republican Organization official flatly denied any role whatsoever in Lapinski’s recruitment. They have much bigger general election races to deal with than the safe incumbent Democrat Mussman.

Lapinski was never gonna win that House race (he kicked his primary opponent off the ballot), but he was mentioned as a possible county Republican Party Chair last year, and he’s on the party’s exec committee, so he’s worth watching.

* This started coming to light last year when New Trier Republican Committeeperson Julie Cho heard rumors that Lapinski was a Holocaust denier. Lapinski had asked her for an endorsement, but when she heard the chatter, she reached out to him. Cho tried to get the word out about Lapinski via a clunky Facebook video ad, but had no luck.

Somebody else put the two of us together and Committeeperson Cho shared with me the following text exchanges with Lapinski, who confirmed their authenticity.

Cho started with a question about “Consequences For The World Of The Holocaust Narrative,” a video posted by some guy named Father James Mawdsley. The video’s intro…

This video stands alone, but it is far more powerful once you realize that the Holocaust narrative is an evil myth. The Germans ran no homicidal gas chambers. There was no genocide against the Jews. The final solution was actually the intended expulsion of Jewry from Europe.

* To the text exchange…

When “View all” is clicked on both of Lapinski’s responses…

Uh-oh.

* But wait, there’s more…

* So, I reached out to Committeeman Lapinski…

Rich Miller: Hello, Mr. Lapinski. This is Rich Miller with Capitol Fax. This text exchange was sent to me by Julie Cho. Did you indeed send those texts to her? [Images sent.]

Ed Lapinski: Hello Rich. I’m assuming she sent you the entire thread? Julie has been paying for an ad claiming I’m a holocaust denier, however twice in the same text thread I had stated that atrocities/genocide had occurred. Assuming you’re talking about these same texts between Julie and I, on the subject for which Julie was persistent talking about, yes those had taken place between the two of us.

Rich Miller: Yes, I saw those

Ed Lapinski: You can believe whatever you’d like

Rich Miller: That might be your department. Has the Illinois Policy Institute told you they no longer support you?

Ed Lapinski: Well, why don’t you invest your time in reporting on actual news?

Rich Miller: A republican house candidate who spouts holocaust denier rhetoric is not your everyday story

Ed Lapinski: I’m telling you now, unequivocally, I’ve never once denied the holocaust.

* I sent all of the above to Vlad Khaykin at the Simon Wiesenthal Center with this request…

What I am asking from you is a confirmation that what follows is classic Holocaust denialism. Seems to be just that based on my own research.

From Mr. Khaykin…

Such rhetoric will be immediately familiar to anyone who studies Holocaust denial. Specifically, it is what some scholars call “soft-core Holocaust denial.” Unlike hardcore denial, which claims the Holocaust never happened, soft-core denial undermines historical truth by casting doubt on specific, well-established facts — most commonly by suggesting that the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis has been exaggerated.

Holocaust denial is not only intellectually bankrupt, it is profoundly offensive. Jewish family trees are missing entire branches due to the Holocaust. Deniers would have us believe that Jews fabricated the murder of their loved ones accusing Holocaust survivors, and the families of those who didn’t survive, of inventing their own trauma.

Holocaust denial, whether softcore or hardcore is not academic scrupulousness over details. It is an antisemitic conspiracy theory. It relies on familiar tropes that portray Jews as a powerful, manipulative force capable of forcing institutions worldwide to promote a falsehood at the expense of non-Jews.

Holocaust denial continues the work of the Nazis themselves, who went to great lengths to conceal the evidence of their mass murder and discredit reports of their atrocities, by minimizing, obscuring, or casting doubt on their crimes. Modern denialism rehabilitates the Nazis while shifting suspicion and blame onto their victims — the Jewish people.

Holocaust denial is embraced by antisemites of every stripe for one simple reason: the truth of the Holocaust exposes the moral and logical bankruptcy of antisemitism. If Jews are as powerful as antisemitic myths claim, why couldn’t we even save our own children from the gas chambers of Auschwitz?

Antisemites have no answer to that question. But instead of abandoning their conspiracist worldview, antisemites deny the crime. They sacrifice historical truth on the altar of their ideology.

TL;DR the Republican Party, and the Cook County Republican Party in particular, appear to have yet another Arthur Jones problem on their hands.