Santorum Giving White Supremacist’s Money to Families of Charleston Victims

Contributor Earl Holt, head of the Council of Conservative Citizens, was named in manifesto of assassin Dylann Roof.

Former Pennsylvania senator and current 2016 Presidential candidate Rick Santorum says he isn’t going to keep a contribution from a hate group leader who apparently influenced Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old man who shot nine people dead in a Charleston church. Instead, Santorum is going to donate the money to a fund for the families of the victims of the mass murder.

The Guardian uncovered the $1,500 donation that Rick Santorum for President received from Earl Holt III of Texas. Holt is the leader of the Council of Conservative Citizens, which has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

The Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) is the modern reincarnation of the old White Citizens Councils, which were formed in the 1950s and 1960s to battle school desegregation in the South. Among other things, its Statement of Principles says that it “oppose[s] all efforts to mix the races of mankind.” Created in 1985 from the mailing lists of its predecessor organization, the CCC, which initially tried to project a “mainstream” image, has evolved into a crudely white supremacist group whose website has run pictures comparing the late pop singer Michael Jackson to an ape and referred to black people as “a retrograde species of humanity.”

No one would have known or cared about Holt’s donation if not for the fact that his group is mentioned on a website that was purportedly created by Roof. On that site, the author says he was influenced by the organization’s publications, specifically of the revelation of “brutal black on white murders.”

Santorum has now said that he will be turning the $1,500 over to a fund established for the families of Roof’s victims. There were three donations made in 2012 during Santorum’s last ill-fated bid for the Oval Office.

Holt made the following statement about his organization’s connection to Roof:

It has been brought to the attention of the Council of Conservative Citizens that Dylann Roof – the alleged perpetrator of mass murder in Charleston this week – credits the CofCC website for his knowledge of black-on-white violent crime.

This is not surprising: The CofCC is one of perhaps three websites in the world that accurately and honestly report black-on-white violent crime, and in particular, the seemingly endless incidents involving black-on-white murder.

The CofCC website exists because media either “spike” such stories, or intentionally obscure the race of black offenders. Indeed, at its national convention some years ago, the Society of Professional Journalists adopted this tactic as a formal policy.

The CofCC is hardly responsible for the actions of this deranged individual merely because he gleaned accurate information from our website.

We are no more responsible for the actions of this sad young man, than the Olin Corporation was for manufacturing the ammo misused by Colin Ferguson to murder six whites on the Long Island Railroad in 1993.

The CofCC does not advocate illegal activities of any kind, and never has. I would gladly compare the honesty and law-abiding nature of our membership against that of any other group.

Holt also made donations to presidential hopefuls Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, both of whom are also sending the money to the family fund.

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