The White House sign-language interpreter who was outed as a supporter of former President Donald Trump mentioned Sunday that she hasn’t been provided a return engagement since — and blasted critics who attacked her credibility and professionalism.
Heather Mewshaw, who started working as an unbiased contractor for the White House final 12 months, mentioned she hasn’t been contacted by the Biden administration within the wake of a Time magazine report that exposed she translated speeches for conservative social media teams.
“The goal of my activity — at the White House or with Hands of Liberty — is that it’s all about access,” Mewshaw informed The Post.
“The thing is, I was canceled and humiliated publicly and it was unjust and unfair.”
Mewshaw, a 41-year-old married mom of 4 from Glen Burnie, Md., additionally mentioned she’s been “harassed” and “intimidated” on-line for offering American Sign Language translation for the Hands of Liberty Facebook group and its defunct predecessor, Right Side ASL.
Those movies embrace one that includes former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani that’s titled “What Really Happened On January 6th?” — the day of the lethal storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters — and one other, since eliminated, that featured controversial Dr. Stella Immanuel, who has promoted treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine, which the FDA has banned for that objective.
Mewshaw mentioned she doesn’t essentially agree with every little thing she interprets, however does the volunteer work in response to requests from individuals who wish to see speeches by Republican politicians and different conservative figures translated into ASL.
Her critics, Mewshaw mentioned, “don’t want this content to be interpreted because they don’t believe in it.”
“Deaf people just want a chance to decide for themself what information is out there,” she mentioned.
Mewshaw additionally claimed there’s a “double-standard” for conservative ASL interpreters and pointed to remarks final 12 months by David Cowan, who translated speeches by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and different GOP state officers after attracting consideration for signing a Beyonce song on the 2019 Atlanta Pride pageant.
“To me, it doesn’t matter — Democrat or Republican, gay or straight. I’m there to provide a service and deliver a message to deaf people,” Cowan told Atlanta magazine.
Although she acknowledged being a Trump supporter, Mewshaw mentioned she paid “about $20” to purchase a purple “Keep America Great” hat for a video titled “Thank You President Trump from the Right Side ASL Team!” that was posted the identical day President Biden was inaugurated final month.
Mewshaw mentioned she was upset by photographs posted on-line that falsely present her sporting the hat throughout White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s Jan. 25 briefing.
That marked the primary and solely time she was employed by the Biden administration after deciphering 5 briefings for the Trump administration between Nov. 19 and Dec. 15.
Other assaults on Mewshaw included a Change.org petition that’s garnered almost 9,000 signatures and a since-deleted tweet by deaf mannequin and actor Nyle DiMarco, who wrote, “Imagine what harm she could cause..,literally holding the message in her hands.”
University of North Carolina schooling professor Jon Henner, who’s mentioned it “would be problematic” for Mewshaw to proceed working for the White House, informed The Post that “I personally wasn’t interested in cancelling her.”
“The past couple of weeks have shown a lot of discussion on the topic about if signed language interpreters can really ‘play for both teams’ so to speak, especially if they have strong feelings either way,” Henner wrote in an electronic mail Sunday.
“Regarding Mewshaw, it’s unfortunate that she did not predict the reaction that she would get from many people in the community given her previous interpreting choices.”
A White House spokesman declined to remark past referring to an earlier, ready assertion that mentioned, “The President and this administration have made a commitment to having an ASL interpreter at every press briefing and are working to follow through on that commitment every single day.”
DiMarco’s web site is suspended and an electronic mail in search of remark from the Nyle DiMarco Foundation wasn’t instantly returned.
