Trump's personal lawyer forwards email saying Confederate general 'saved America'

The leader of Donald Trump’s personal legal team is said to have forwarded an email to conservative journalists and government officials that echoed secessionist Civil War propaganda.

John Dowd, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, is reported to have received the email on Tuesday night and forwarded it on Wednesday morning – less than a day after Mr Trump controversially compared the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee to one of George Washington.

“You cannot be against General Lee and be for General Washington,” the email, obtained by the New York Times, reads. “There literally is no difference between the two men.”

In a list giving examples of why Mr Lee and Mr Washington are similar, the email says that “both saved America” despite the fact that the Confederacy lost the Civil War.

According to the Times, the email’s author, Jerome Almon, runs several websites alleging government conspiracies and asserting that Islamic terrorists have infiltrated the FBI.

Mr Almon’s email also asserts that Black Lives Matter, a group that campaigns against violence and systemic racism toward black people, is being directed by terrorists.

The Times reported that Mr Dowd sent Mr Almon’s email to more than two dozen people, including a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, The Wall Street Journal editorial page and journalists at Fox News and The Washington Times.

There is no evidence that any of the journalists used the contents of the email in their coverage, the Times said.

The contents of the email reflect a muddy controversy over race and history. Mr Trump has received bipartisan criticism for his for his comments on Tuesday insisting that white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other hate groups did not deserve 100 per cent of the blame for the violence that engulfed Charlottesville, Virginia last Saturday.

White nationalist demonstrators descended on the city in Virginia to protest the removal of Lee's statue. The rally, met by counter-protests, quickly became violent – prompting the governor to declare a ‘state of emergency’.

The President, speaking at a news conference in Trump Tower, also criticised “alt-left” groups that he claimed were “very, very violent” when they sought to confront the nationalist and Nazi groups, again saying there is “blame on both sides” and that “there are two sides to the story.”

“Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E Lee,” Mr Trump said. “This week, it is Robert E Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson. Is it George Washington next? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?” he said, later noting that both the first and third American presidents had owned slaves.

“George Washington was a slave owner. Are we gonna take down statues of George Washington? ... you're changing history, you're changing culture...you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”

Republicans and Democrats alike have slammed the President for his remarks, saying there are no good neo-Nazis and there isn’t a moral equivalency between racists and Americans standing up to defy hate and bigotry.