Ron Klain, the former chief of staff to President Joe Biden, defended Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner’s tattoo of a Nazi symbol in a comment responding to the Republican Jewish Coalition on Instagram.

The RJC, after Platner’s victory in Tuesday’s primary election, called on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to rescind his support for Platner. Klain, in a comment on the RJC’s Instagram post, declared, “This is just a partisan attack. The tattoo was a skull and crossbones to remember his fallen comrades from his service in Afghanistan.”

Platner has denied that he knew what the symbol was until late last year, when the campaign was contacted by media about it, but has not claimed, as Klain did, that it was intended to memorialize fallen comrades.

Klain, now the chief legal officer at Airbnb, has reportedly been quietly backing and advising Platner’s campaign, as well as several other prominent progressives, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, potential presidential candidate Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, New York congressional candidate Jack Schlossberg and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA).

But he had previously declined to comment to Politico last week on his political activities, and had otherwise not discussed his involvement with Platner.

Platner’s former romantic partner, Lyndsey Fifield, who has accused him of domestic abuse, has said that he described the tattoo to her as “my Totenkopf” and would joke about it being a Nazi symbol. She said that Platner told her that he and his Marine colleagues chose the symbol because they saw a parallel between themselves and the Nazi SS as a “death unit.”

Fifield shared text messages with The New York Times showing that she had informed friends that Platner had a tattoo of a Nazi symbol in August 2025, months before it became public knowledge.

The RJC said on X that “Klain’s pathetic rationalization of a clear Nazi symbol is a total disgrace,” and that, as a former U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum board member, “Klain absolutely knows better.”

“Every Jewish family in America knows what the insignia of the Nazi SS — the unit that ran the death camps — looks like and Klain knows exactly what it is too,” the group said.

Following his victory in Maine’s primaries on Tuesday, some Senate Democrats who appeared wary of Platner after the domestic abuse allegations once again appear to be rallying around him.

“I think Graham showed a great deal of support in the primary, and I think … that’s going to build momentum and will assure that we win Maine,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told CNN.