Newsweek editors Nancy Cooper and Josh Hammer would really like the world to think that they did not publish a racist article attacking Kamala Harris’s eligibility to serve as vice president of the United States. In fact, Cooper and Hammer wrote an entirely separate article — stylized as an “editor’s note” — to insist they are not racists for promoting the second great wave of American birtherism aimed at Harris, whose parents are Jamaican and Indian. Legal experts were decidedly a bit skeptical.

Defending Rights & Dissent Policy Director Chip Gibbons tweeted: “My editor’s note explaining that the column we ran is not racist has a lot of people asking questions already answered by my editor’s note.”

More at Law & Crime:

Newsweek Immediately Went Full Birther on Kamala Harris. Their Defense Just Made Things Worse.