Sen. Kelly Loeffler condemns white supremacist after posing for picture with him
Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s campaign is responding to backlash sparked by a social media photo of her posing with a longtime white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan member.
Loeffler was pictured smiling alongside Chester Doles after a campaign event Friday in Dawsonville, about 60 miles north of Atlanta, the Associated Press reported. Criticism was swift as the photo began circulating online.
The senator’s campaign has since condemned Doles, saying Loeffler didn’t know the man in the picture.
“Kelly had no idea who that was,” deputy campaign manager Stephen Lawson told McClatchy News in a statement. “And if she had she would have kicked him out immediately, because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for.”
The incident comes just weeks ahead of a high-stakes runoff between Loeffler and Democrat Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, as the Republican incumbent tries to hold on to her Senate seat. The race is one of two Georgia runoff elections that will determine which party has control of the U.S. Senate.
Early in-person voting kicked off Monday across the Peach State with three weeks to go before the Jan. 5 runoff.
Doles was among the attendees at Friday’s campaign event in Dawsonville and posted a photo of himself with Loeffler on a Russian social networking site, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The newspaper reports that Doles spent years in the KKK and is affiliated with a “racist skinhead gang” that marched in the Unite the Right rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He was also one of two Klansmen convicted in the April 1993 beating of a Black man in Maryland — an attack police said was spurred after the man was “seen riding in a pickup truck with a white woman,” The Baltimore Sun reported.
More recently, Doles was kicked out of a political rally hosted by Loeffler and GOP Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene in September, according to the AJC.
Warnock’s campaign has also criticized Loeffler, saying there is no explanation for her photo with Doles.
“She is once again trying to distance herself from someone who is a known white supremacist and former KKK leader who nearly beat a Black man to death,” Warnock spokesman Michael Brewer said, according to WSB-TV. “There’s no acceptable explanation for it happening once, let alone a second time.”
Doles now heads an organization called American Patriots USA, which as expressed support for President Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, the news station reported.
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Sen. Kelly Loeffler condemns white supremacist after posing for picture with him."