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Bozell III, a conservative activist, is the father of one of the people charged with storming the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
Leo Brent Bozell III, Donald Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to South Africa. (Kris Connor / Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump has nominated Brent Bozell III to replace Reuben Brigety as ambassador to South Africa.
Brigety resigned on 10 January.
The nomination was published on the US Congress’ official website on Tuesday.
The Citizen has contacted the US embassy in South Africa for comment, which will be added to the story once it is received.
Since Trump took over the Presidency of the US for a second term, Washington has been without an ambassador to South Africa amid simmering and fractured relations between the two countries.
“Leo Brent Bozell III, of Virginia, to be ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of South Africa,” read a note, dated 24 March, received from Senate and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Bozell III, whom the Senate must confirm, would step into the role when the relationship between South Africa and the United States is at its worst.
The Trump administration recently expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, after he criticised Trump during a webinar.
Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, has frequently posted messages on X disparaging the South African government, falsely claiming that there have been mass killings of white farmers.
Musk also falsely claimed that his satellite business, Starlink, could not operate in South Africa because he is not Black.
ALSO READ: Senior US diplomat Dana Brown resigns amid US and SA tensions
Bozell III, a conservative activist, is the father of one of the people charged with storming the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
In January, Bozell III took to social media X (formerly Twitter) to post that his son was one of the pro-Trump supporters who were granted pardons for attacking Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021.
Trump had initially nominated him to head the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which owns the government-backed Voice of America. However, that nomination was withdrawn, and Bozell III is likely to be Washington’s new ambassador in South Africa.
Bozell III is also the founder of Media Research Centre, an organisation whose sole mandate is to expose liberal bias in the media.
Bozell has also been a vocal supporter of the Israeli government.
After Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, he posted a fundraising appeal for Israel on his centre’s website, saying that he did not usually make appeals for outside causes but was making an exception because “this is an emergency.”
Speculation had been rife about who would be taking over from Brigety.
South African-born Joel Pollak, senior editor-at-large of the conservative Breitbart News and a “Make America Great Again (Maga)”, had been widely tipped as the front-runner for the job.
His nomination comes after Dana Brown, the United States chargé d’affaires in South Africa, resigned from the US State Department.
The US Department of State selected David Greene, the current Deputy Chief of Mission in Abuja, Nigeria, to serve as Chargé d’Affaires at the US Mission to South Africa.
ALSO READ: Controversial US Ambassador to SA Reuben Brigety announces resignation
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