Asked Wednesday about recent remarks by Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler against his Democratic opponent, Reverend Raphael Warnock, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff went on the offensive, claiming that Loeffler was campaigning with a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
“[H]above all, Kelly Loeffler campaigned with a klansman, “Ossoff told Fox News Wednesday.” Kelly Loeffler campaigned with a klansman, “he repeated, made her campaign with a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Ossoff
tweeted Fox News video, again writing that “Kelly Loeffler campaigned with a klansman.”
The photo, taken during a December 11 campaign event, shows Loeffler posing with Chester Doles, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and member of the Neo-Nazi National Alliance who was sentenced to prison in the 1990s for assaulting a black man in Maryland.
After Doles uploaded the image to a Russian social media site, as CNN reported, it spilled elsewhere online and was widely criticized by Democrats.
On December 13, Loeffler’s campaign condemned Doles, telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Kelly had no idea who he was, and if she had, she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the loudest terms all he stands for. “
CNN reported at the time that there was “no evidence that she recognized Doles or sought her support.”
The Ossoff campaign provided CNN with a recent Huffington Post article showing several photos of Loeffler on the campaign trail posing with individuals allegedly associated with far-right groups, but these photos do not demonstrate that Loeffler campaigned with a former member of the KKK, as Ossoff alleged. Loeffler’s campaign told the Huffington Post that the senator “speaks out against all forms of hate.”
CNN’s Alex Rogers contributed to this article.
