Lang
2/4/25
A candidate for Iowa City city council is responding to concerns over his posts on social media.
On Monday, a former Iowa City city councilor sent Facebook screencaps to KCJJ showing current council candidate Oliver Weilein holding what appeared to be an assault-style rifle.
Screencaps from X show numerous anti-police tweets from Weilein as well as one where he wrote “My town never looked better” with photos of anti-police graffiti on the Old Capitol in 2020. In another post, Weilein fails to condemn potential violence following November’s presidential election of Donald Trump, and he has tweets in which he jokes about the murder of United Healthcare CEO and University of Iowa graduate Brian Thompson in New York City. The former counselor…who spoke on condition of anonymity…was also concerned that Wielein’s campaign logo bears a resemblance to the international flag for anarchy.
Weilein addressed some of the concerns in a Monday Facebook post on his campaign web site, saying the image of the gun is from six years ago, and that it was taken by his partner who thought it looked “odd”. He added that he grew up going to a shooting range with his parents, but never wanted to own firearms himself until he faced what he called “extreme threats” from far-right nationalists.
The former counselor who spoke with KCJJ noted that some of the posts involving guns and burning police cars are from as recently as last year.