By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Harold Maldonado spent four pages this week telling Montgomery County voters he’d been smeared by his own party. He never got around to mentioning what he actually wrote on social media.
The Montgomery County Republican Party’s central committee voted unanimously Tuesday night to pull its support from Maldonado, the GOP’s District 7 County Council nominee, and to strike him from its 2026 general election voter guide. The party’s chairman, Dennis Melby, said the decision came after members were shown a string of Maldonado’s own posts, including one dated Sept. 11, 2026, in which he wrote that “locally, Mossad controls the council and the executive” and called the CIA and Israel’s intelligence service the forces behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“We reject as baseless and unacceptable his allegations that Mossad controls Montgomery County elected officials.” — MCGOP Chairman Dennis Melby
That post wasn’t isolated. According to screenshots and posts reviewed and published by Jewish news outlet JNS, Maldonado wrote in 2025 that he was “highly suspicious about Oct. 7” and described Israel’s war against Hamas as “part of the greater Israel project,” and separately accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide against Palestine.” In an October 2025 post, he wrote that Mossad and Israel carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and other “false flags,” and in the same post suggested Israel was behind the killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. JNS also reported that Maldonado has claimed Israel and Mossad were behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and an attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, that modern Jews descend from Khazars, and that former Vice President Kamala Harris “descends from Jewish slave owners.”
Maldonado has linked Israel or Mossad to 9/11, JFK’s assassination, an attempt on Donald Trump, and the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Montgomery County is home to roughly 45% of Maryland’s Jewish population, the largest share of any county in the state, according to Montgomery County government data.
“We reject as baseless and unacceptable his allegations that Mossad controls Montgomery County elected officials,” Melby said in a statement announcing the decision. He told JNS the party, made up of a small group of volunteers, moved quickly once a local blogger flagged the posts, and said he wished he’d caught them sooner.
According to Montgomery Perspective, which covered Tuesday’s meeting, the motion to cut Maldonado loose came from Reardon “Sully” Sullivan, the GOP’s District 1 nominee and the party’s first vice chair. Montgomery Community Media reported the vote followed complaints about antisemitic, anti-Black, and conspiracy-based statements, and that Maldonado appeared before the committee to defend himself. Sullivan said in his own statement that Maldonado’s posts “are his alone” and don’t reflect other Republican candidates running in the county this year. Esther Wells, the Republican nominee for county executive, also addressed the fallout publicly this week.
Maldonado calls it a smear, doesn’t address the posts
Maldonado’s campaign fired back Thursday with a lengthy press release headlined “Hispanic Immigrant Candidate Smeared by County Republican Party.” The release blames the party’s move on an article from Montgomery Perspective, a local politics site Maldonado’s campaign labeled a “far-left media outlet,” and says his comments “exclusively use open-source material” meant to encourage readers to “make their own conclusions.”
Nowhere in the release does Maldonado address the Mossad, 9/11, JFK, or Khazar posts JNS documented. Instead, his campaign points to his claimed background, 10 years working in intelligence and national security issues at the CIA, and pivots to an unrelated line of attack: that County Executive Marc Elrich and county council members have traveled annually to Smart City conferences in Taiwan since 2023, and that Elrich and Councilmember Will Jawando traveled to similar events in China in 2025. The campaign ties both trips to implementation of “UN Agenda 2030” through the county’s Thrive 2050 plan. MDBayNews has not independently verified the specifics of those trips, Maldonado’s CIA claim, or the campaign’s characterization of any of it; Bethesda Magazine, in its own reporting on Maldonado’s candidacy, describes him only as “a security consultant from Derwood.” The release does not connect the Taiwan and China trips to the conspiracy posts the party cited.
Nowhere in the release does Maldonado address the Mossad, 9/11, JFK or Khazar posts JNS documented.
Maldonado argued in the release that there’s a difference between raising a question and presenting an allegation as fact, and that the party’s decision affects only its endorsement and voter guide, not his position on the November ballot. The release closes under a bolded header reading, “This campaign is not over.”
Maldonado faces Democratic incumbent Dawn Luedtke in the Nov. 3 general election, a rematch of 2022, when Luedtke defeated him with 67% of the vote, according to Bethesda Magazine. He ran unopposed for the Republican nomination in this year’s June primary. Both candidates are listed as the certified Democratic and Republican nominees for District 7 on the state’s official Nov. 3 general election ballot, confirming that the party’s withdrawal of support changes nothing about Maldonado’s status as the Republican on the ballot.
The party can withdraw its support. It cannot erase the result of the Republican primary.
- Maldonado’s name will come off MCGOP websites, voter guides and party social media, per Montgomery Community Media.
- Melby said the party has also called on Democrats to denounce antisemitic remarks by figures like streamer Hasan Piker and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, framing Tuesday’s move as consistent with that standard.
What to Watch
Whether other Montgomery County Republican candidates on the November ballot face pressure to further distance themselves from Maldonado, and whether Maldonado’s campaign directly responds to the specific posts JNS documented rather than the “far-left” framing in his press release, are the open questions heading into the fall campaign.
Sources: Jessica Russak-Hoffman, “Maryland Republicans withdraw support from antisemitic conspiracy theorist,” JNS, published Sept. 24, 2026. Montgomery Community Media, “County Republicans pull support for candidate Maldonado,” published late September 2026. Bethesda Magazine, “In response to recent posts, MCGOP pulls support for Dist. 7 council candidate,” published Sept. 25, 2026, and “Assistant attorney general, economist squaring off in County Council District 7,” published Oct. 20, 2022, for the 2022 election result. Montgomery Perspective, “Republicans Withdraw Support of Maldonado,” published Sept. 23, 2026, and “Maldonado Goes After Republicans,” published Sept. 24, 2026. Maldonado for Council, press release, “Hispanic Immigrant Candidate Smeared by County Republican Party,” Sept. 24, 2026. Montgomery County Council, “Jewish American Heritage Month,” montgomerycountymd.gov, for the county’s Jewish-population figure. Maryland State Board of Elections, official 2026 general election ballot for Montgomery County, and Maryland Association of Counties’ Conduit Street primary coverage, published June 24, 2026, for candidate and ballot status. MDBayNews, “Police Say MCPS Declined to Give Them the Name of a Student Accused of Kicking an Autistic 6-Year-Old,” Sept. 24, 2026, for background on Maldonado’s District 7 candidacy.
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