Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said he plans to return thousands of dollars donated to his presidential campaign by a Lone Star State white supremacist whose group’s teachings appear to have influenced Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old accused of gunning down nine black worshipers at a Charleston, South Carolina, church.
The Cruz campaign told
The New York Times on Sunday that it had just learned of Earl Holt III’s contributions and would be "immediately refunding all those donations."
Holt, 62, lists himself as the president of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization characterized by the
Southern Poverty Law Center as "condemning race mixing, decrying the evils of illegal immigration, and lamenting the decline of white, European civilization."
The Guardian reported Sunday that Holt has given some $65,000 to Republican campaigns in recent years, including Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
The Santorum and Paul campaigns did not immediately respond to the Times' requests for comment on the donations.
According to Federal Election Commission filings, since 2012 Holt has contributed $8,500 to Cruz and his Jobs, Growth and Freedom Fund political action committee. On some of the filings Holt listed his occupation as "slumlord," The Guardian reported.
Paul’s political action committee, RandPAC, received $1,750 from Holt, while Santorum’s campaign received $1,500.
"Holt has also distributed tens of thousands in campaign contributions among prominent Republicans in Congress, such as Representative Steve King of Iowa ($2,000), Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas ($1,500) and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona ($1,000)," the newspaper reported. "He also gave $3,200 to the former Minnesota congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann."
The GOP’s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, received a $2,000 donation from Holt.
Holt has made no secret of his radical beliefs, often posting online, using his full name, according to The Guardian. His remarks have included "black people were 'the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world.'"
He has characterized blacks with the "faux-Latin" term "Africanus Criminalis" and repeatedly used the N-word when referring to black people.
Before allegedly carrying out the executions of nine members of the historically black AME Church in Charleston,
Roof posted a 2,500-word manifesto decrying the black race on a website registered in his name.
"I have no choice," it reads. "I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me."
In the manifesto, Roof also writes that he first learned of "brutal black-on-white murders" from the Council of Conservative Citizens' website.
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