Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin has become the latest Republican presidential hopeful to forfeit thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the leader of a rightwing group said to have influenced the Charleston church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.
Following an inquiry from the Guardian, a spokeswoman for Walker said he would be giving up money he received in recent years from Earl Holt, the president of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC). “The governor will be donating this money to charity,” the spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said in an email.
Walker, who is expected to officially join the 2016 party primary contest soon, received $3,500 for gubernatorial campaigns in his state from Holt, whose activist organisation is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The author of a manifesto that surfaced on a website registered in Roof’s name and hosting photographs of the 21-year-old said he had been influenced by the CofCC website. “At this moment I realized that something was very wrong,” the text said.
The Wisconsin governor’s decision follows similar moves by senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, both candidates for the presidential nomination, who received more than $10,000 between them from Holt, who has also posted dozens of racist comments online.
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