* As mayor, Barletta did an interview with a fringe publication that promotes Holocaust denial and headlined a rally where a political activist and musician who has questioned the Holocaust and promoted conspiracies about the September 11, 2001 attacks also spoke and performed.
* Barletta’s associations with the more fringe elements of the immigration debate continued when was elected to Congress in 2010.
* Barletta’s positions on immigration and his associations with some of the more extreme elements of the anti-illegal immigration movement will face intense scrutiny in the coming months.
CNN: GOP Senate candidate Lou Barletta did interview in 2006 with Holocaust-denying publication
By Andrew Kaczynski and Chris Massie
Rep. Lou Barletta, an immigration hardliner running in a crowded US Senate primary in Pennsylvania, came in contact over the years with fringe organizations and individuals with views far outside the mainstream of American politics, a CNN KFile review of his public appearances over the past decade reveals.
Prior to serving in Congress for the last seven years, Barletta was the mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where he enacted tough measures to crack down on illegal immigration, including an act that allowed the city to impose fines on landlords who rented to undocumented immigrants and deny permits to businesses who employed them (the ordinance was struck down in federal court).