The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that two Republicans running for safely red House seats in Georgia, 9th District hopeful Matt Gurtler and 14th District candidate Marjorie Greene, each posed for a photo earlier this year with longtime white supremacist Chester Doles.
Gurtler, a state representative running in the June 9 primary to succeed Senate candidate Doug Collins, was shown with several other candidates for lower office alongside Doles, with a banner for Doles’ “American Patriots USA” behind them. American Patriots is notorious in state political circles for, among other things, arguing that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job, and even Collins condemned it last year.
When the AJC asked Gurtler about the picture he responded, “I was asked by a voter to speak to a pro-gun, conservative group that supports President Trump. There was a group picture with all the candidates and speakers.” Gurtler’s campaign also told the paper that Doles had not been the one to invite him, but it didn’t reveal anything more.
Later on Monday, Gurtler put out a string of tweets attacking “[t]he fake news media” and “unprincipled actors” who are “are focused on maintaining their corrupt agendas.” Gurtler insisted, “I abhor bigotry and hate of any kind,” though he didn’t say why he had attended Doles’ event.
Gurtler’s allies at the anti-tax Club for Growth, though, were fine with his response. When the AJC asked if this photo would affect the group’s support for Gurtler, a Club spokesman responded, “No change. He has addressed it.” The organization also launched a $244,000 ad campaign promoting the state representative as a pro-Trump conservative who isn’t a “career politician.”
Over in the neighboring 14th District, self-funding businesswoman Marjorie Greene was even less contrite about her photo with Doles. Greene’s campaign dismissed the AJC’s questions as “silly and the same type of sleazy attacks the Fake News Media levels against President Trump.”
Doles himself expressed plenty of admiration for “[o]ur friend Marjorie Greene” in a March Facebook post. Greene has in the past defended QAnon, the notorious pro-Trump conspiracy theory, and Doles called her “part of the Q movement” and a “[g]ood friend to have.”