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Clay Higgins' controversial past resurfaces after Epstein Files vote: Auschwitz video to racist remarks on Haitians
The Louisiana congressman's history of inflammatory remarks and racial attacks in the light of his opposition to opening Jeffrey Epstein documents
Rep. Clay Higgins, representing Louisiana's 3rd congressional district, has opposed a House vote to fully release Jeffrey Epstein's case files.
On an X post after the vote, Higgins defended his decision, writing, “I have been a principled 'NO' on this bill from the beginning. What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today. It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America.”
In light of his vote against the release, his past controversies call into question his judgment and integrity as a lawmaker entrusted with accountability.
Higgins's history includes controversies circling racism, the holocaust and, according to a Mother Jones investigation, association with former “law enforcement officials of severe wrongdoing—including allegedly participating in a sex trafficking ring in one case and of committing incest in another.”
Also Read: Who is Clay Higgins, the sole congressman to vote against releasing Epstein Files?
2017 Auschwitz video
Higgins’s Auschwitz video first made headlines when he posted footage marking his visit to the death camps. He said he had made the video to remind the world of evil and to justify the U.S. military’s strength.
In the 2017 video, he narrated the horrors of genocide and stated, “This is why … our military must be invincible.”
According to the Guardian, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum strongly condemned the act, calling the gas chamber a place for “mourning, not a stage.”
Higgins later apologised, saying, “My intent was to offer a reverent homage…I did not intend to offend.”
He removed the video and expressed regret. The controversy, however, has followed him into his political career.
Also Read: Why did Clay Higgins vote 'nay' on releasing the Epstein Files? Louisiana Rep says: 'It abandons…'
Racist Rhetoric Against Haitian Migrants
In September 2024, Higgins posted incendiary remarks on X (formerly Twitter) that repeated racist claims about Haitians. In the post, Higgins called them “wild” and “slapstick gangsters,” and accused them of criminal behaviour and cult activity.
His post added to the disinformation campaign that alleged that Haitian migrants were eating pets.
The incident sparked calls for his censure from Democratic lawmakers. But House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican and fellow Louisianan, defended him, saying Higgins “prayed on it … regretted it” before deleting the post.
Higgins, however, doubled down publicly, saying he stood by the language. “It’s all true … I’ll say what I want,” he had said.
Troubling ties to Law-Enforcement figures
A 2024 Mother Jones investigation raised serious questions about Higgins's associations with individuals accused of grave crimes.
The Mother Jones report revealed that he maintained close ties with Leon Boudreaux, a former St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy convicted of incest in 2021.
Boudreaux told Mother Jones that Higgins had called to check on him after the incest conviction: “He did call me … but we don’t really talk about that kind of stuff.”
Meanwhile, Higgins has been vocal about sex-trafficking concerns at the U.S.–Mexico border in Congress while maintaining relationships with an accused sex predator.
Higgins and Boudreaux are photographed together in the Facebook pages of the “Kindred Vets” motorcycle club, which Boudreaux founded.
Higgins's own law-enforcement record is fraught
In the same Mother Jones report, they found that Higgins once served in the Opelousas Police Department, but resigned after internal findings that he lied during an assault investigation.
One of his closest former colleagues, John Chautin, was disciplined for excessive force; today, Chautin works as Higgins’ district director.
