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On Tuesday, House Republicans voted unanimously on a resolution of disapproval directed at Rep. Steve King after King questioned why white nationalism and white supremacy were considered offensive. On Wednesday, notorious Holocaust-denying white-supremacy-supporting even-banned-from-Twitter alt-right troll Chuck Johnson visited the Congress, the guest of House Republican Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland and Phil Roe of Tennessee. He was recognized by a reporter, which is something that happens when you are one of the most toxic figures in all of conservatism, and photographed in the company of the two Republicans.
Asked why they were meeting with one of the most noxious alt-right trolls in the nation, Harris and Roe played dumb. As in, very, very dumb.
In statements, Poe and Harris confirmed they had met with Johnson to discuss genetic testing and DNA, but claimed they weren’t aware of Johnson’s controversial history.
"Controversial history" is underselling it. Johnson is a prolific, if mostly incompetent, hoax promoter. His websites have served as fundraising platforms for white supremacist causes; his Twitter-banning came after a threat directed at a Black Lives Matter leader. His path to fame was the usual, for alt-right figures: say outrageous things, and be willing to step farther across the bounds of decency than anyone else. His most notorious moment was probably his efforts to publicize pictures of Republican Sen. Thad Cochran's wife, who was confined to a nursing home, an episode that ended with the arrest of three people. For his obsessive intraparty efforts at smearing the now-retired Cochran, Johnson is toxic even in Republican circles.
According to the two House Republicans, however, one of the most self-publicizing far-right figures in the country was just there to promote genome sequencing, and nobody in either office had a clue about his long, sordid history, nor did they bother to so much as look him up on th’ Google before taking the meeting. Mmm-hmm. Well, given the continued raw incompetence of even the Republican leadership, that's not entirely implausible—we'll give them that.
It is at the moment unclear what Johnson's current interest in more robust genetic testing might be, nor do we particularly care. The Huffington Post notes that genetic testing is of course a keen interest of many in the white supremacist community for explicitly racist reasons, but that is surely a mere coincidence.