The leader of a white supremacist group who inspired the Charleston shooter donated thousands of dollars to some of the Republican presidential candidates, reported the Guardian.
Earl Holt, 62, is the president of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), a pro-white, segregationist group. Dylann Roof, the shooter who killed nine people in Charleston, cites Holt and his group in his written manifesto. Holt has donated approximately $65,000 to Republican presidential candidates like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, since 2012, Holt contributed $8,500 to Cruz and his Jobs, Growth and Freedom Fund PAC. He donated $1,750 to RandPAC, $2,000 to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, and $1,500 to Santorum’s current presidential run. Holt picked the worst of the worst and gave them money. Holt might have given Ben Carson a contribution. But Carson is black, and Holt is racist.
After the Cruz campaign learned that Holt contributed, it offered a full refund.
“Upon learning Mr. Holt’s background, Senator Cruz made an immediate decision to return his contributions,” said Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler. “We will be immediately refunding the donation.”
RandPAC said it will donate Holt’s donation to the Mother Emanuel Hope Fund to assist the families of the Charleston shooting victims. Santorum issued a statement against Holt.
“I abhor the sentiments Mr. Holt has expressed,” said Santorum. “These statements and sentiments are unacceptable.”
After it became known that Roof cited the CofCC in his manifesto, Holt issued a statement.
“The CofCC is hardly responsible for the actions of this deranged individual merely because he gleaned accurate information from our website,” read the statement.
Holt’s group may not be directly responsible for the Charleston shooting. Like the Confederate flag, however, Holt and the CofCC did help bolster the exact same philosophy that caused Roof to murder nine innocent people.
Holt follows The Blaze, Glenn Beck’s website of conservative drivel, and developed a four-year history of posting racist babble in the comment section. In one post from 2011, Holt, under his actual name, wrote “The REAL ENEMY is ‘Africanus Criminalis,’ the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world.”
This is bad for Holt and the candidates. The whole country now knows about Holt, an ultra-conservative racist, and that he is the kind of scum that the GOP attracts.
