A man with a history of "honorary" membership in the Klu Klux Klan not only managed to make it on the unofficial ballot to be the Republican nominee for Missouri governor, but may even appear atop the official ballot when GOP voters vote in the primary this August.
The candidates' names are listed in ballot order, and because McClanahan drew a low number his name appears first.
A 2022 article on the Anti-Defamation League's website shows McClanahan next to a man in white robes as both men give what appear to be Nazi salutes in front of a burning cross some time around 2019.
The Riverfront Times reached out via text message and asked McClanahan if he was the man pictured in front of the burning cross in the image. McClanahan replied, “It's an invisible empire Yes it's me.”
But he denied ever being in the KKK.
The Riverfront Times reports:
McClanahan directed us to a lawsuit he filed against the ADL and its head, Jonathan Greenblatt, in federal court in September.
That lawsuit concerns the 2022 article on the ADL site, which McClanahan argues was defamatory.
In an unusual legal strategy for a man alleging he'd been defamed by assertions he is aligned with antisemites and white supremacists, McClanahan says in his own court filings that he is a "Pro-White man, horseman, politician, political prisoner-activist who is dedicated to traditional Christian values." He also says that he has had "honorary memberships" in the Knight's Party Ku Klux Klan and the League of the South.
He also writes he "did attend in 2019 a private religious Christian Identity Cross lighting ceremony falsely described as a cross burning."
Greenblatt and the ADL subsequently filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit, and Judge Jill A. Morris issued an order in their favor in December, ruling that despite McClanahan’s denial of actual KKK membership or white supremacist views, his acknowledged honorary membership in the Knight’s Party Ku Klux Klan and membership in the League of the South, which supports “Southern secession and the establishment of a white-dominated independent territory,” means that the ADL’s allegations “substantially align with the truth.”
It is not clear whether the Missouri Republican Party can reject McClanahan’s candidacy (or if they want to) at this point or whether he’ll be on the official ballot come August after appearing on the unofficial one yesterday. He is presumably on the unofficial ballot because the party accepted his filing fee and paperwork.
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