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Two candidates for the Democratic Senate of Georgia accused Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler of “campaigning with a Klansman”, which she denied.
Jon Ossoff, who faces incumbent GOP Senator David Perdue in the Jan.5 runoff, brought the charge in a press fight Wednesday in response to a question from Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy.
“Kelly Loeffler campaigned with the Klansmen,” he said, repeating the same phrase in the next breath for emphasis. “She is using these vicious personal attacks (on Warnock) to distract from the fact that she campaigned with a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Reverend Raphael Warnock, who faces Loeffler in the state’s other Senate race, doubled in a tweet Thursday. He shared a photo taken earlier this month that shows Loeffler smiling alongside a former Ku Klux Klan leader named Chester Doles. He also included a newspaper clipping showing Doles leading a march with other Klan members.
A spokesperson for Loeffler’s campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.
But Loeffler, R-Ga., Called Ossoff a “pathological liar” Wednesday during another interview with Doocy, because he claimed she had “campaigned” with a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
“Georgia knows Jon Ossoff is a pathological liar. He’s a trust fund socialist whose only job has been working for the Chinese Communist Party for the past few years,” Loeffler said, referring to payments from a conglomerate government-linked Hong Kong media to Ossoff media. company, which he did not initially list on a financial disclosure form this year.
She said she didn’t know the man and condemned his beliefs two weeks ago.
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“Kelly had no idea who he was, and if she had, she would have immediately kicked him out because we condemn in the most vehement terms everything he stands for,” said Stephen Lawson, Loeffler’s campaign spokesperson at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shortly after Doles shared the “selfie” on a Russian social media site.
U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., Chats with supporters during a campaign event December 31 at McCray’s Tavern in Marietta, Ga. (AP Photo / Ben Gray)
It is common for candidates to pose for selfies with people along the campaign trail, and Doles does not appear to have been part of the campaign, as Ossoff alleged.
Doles has spent years as a vocal white supremacist, and is a former member of the KKK as well as other racist groups. He marched at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., In 2017, where a woman was killed by a white supremacist who drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters.
Doles pleaded guilty to a battery charge after attacking a black man seen on a truck with a white woman in Maryland in the 1990s, according to the Baltimore Sun. As part of a plea deal to reduce the assault with intent to murder charge, he agreed to testify against a Klansman accomplice.
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Doles told The Associated Press this month that he recently renounced racism “and asked for forgiveness from God.” Despite this, the outlet reported that it nevertheless maintained ties with friends who remain involved in the white supremacist movement.
Loeffler had been nominated to take the seat of Senator Johnny Isakson, who resigned a year ago. His run with Warnock is a special election for Isakson’s seat.
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Ossoff managed to force a runoff with Perdue after no candidate could get enough votes to win the seat on election day.
Republicans must retain at least one seat to retain their majority in the Senate.
Fox News’ Peter Hasson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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