After accepting a filing fee and candidacy paperwork for one Darrell Leon McClanahan III, the Missouri Republican Party is backing away from the man running in the primary for governor, whom New Republic describes as a "known white supremacist." A day after former state Rep. Shamed Dogan, previously the only Black Republican in the Legislature, called on the state party to reject McClanahan's filing fee, the Missouri GOP said it had "begun the process of having Mr. McClanahan removed from the ballot as a Republican candidate" as his "affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan ... fundamentally contradicts our party's values and platform."
The Anti-Defamation League outed McClanahan as a KKK affiliate in 2022. McClanahan sued for defamation last year but the case was thrown out. In his complaint, McClanahan had described himself as a "Pro-White man, horseman, politician, political prisoner-activist who is dedicated to traditional Christian values." Speaking Thursday to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, McClanahan didn't deny he was pictured giving the Nazi salute alongside an individual in a KKK robe at a 2019 cross burning organized by the Arkansas-based Christian Identity Klan. But "I'm not a Nazi, I don't believe in heil Hitler," he said.
In his lawsuit, he claimed he's never been a member of the KKK, yet admitted he was "provided an Honorary 1-year membership." He also acknowledged membership in the League of the South, a white extremist group. "Shame on the GOP for accepting his filing fee," House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, who's running for governor as a Democrat, said Wednesday, per the Post-Dispatch. The Missouri GOP said Thursday it was refunding McClanahan's $200 filing fee and would ask him to voluntarily withdraw. But "the GOP knew exactly who I am," McClanahan, who ran as a Republican for the US Senate seat won by Eric Schmitt in 2022, tells the AP. "What a bunch of Anti-White hypocrites." (More Ku Klux Klan stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
