Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler's campaign said she did not know she was posing with a convicted white supremacist last week after the photo sparked fierce criticism from her Democrat opponent ahead of the January 5 runoff elections for control of the Senate, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Sunday.
"Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for," Loeffler's campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson said.
The photo shows Loeffler smiling next to Chester Doles, a convicted white supremacist who was sentenced to prison for the 1993 beating of a Black man and another time for weapons violations. He is a longtime member of the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi National Alliance and is also associated with the Hammerskins, a racist skinhead gang with whom he marched in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
Doles posted the picture to a Russian social networking site, and it spread to Twitter within a few hours.
However, there is no evidence that Loeffler was seeking the backing of Doles or that she knew who he was, as it is common for politicians take selfies with people who come to their campaign events.
But Democrat Rep.-elect Nikema Williams was among the Democrats who noted that "This isn't the first time her campaign, which is responsible for divisive attacks, is having to explain why this has taken place. Georgians deserve better than her excuses and her deeply negative campaign," adding that "Hatred and racism have no place in our politics, yet once again we are seeing Senator Kelly Loeffler appear with a bigoted and appalling figure."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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