A spokesperson for Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) says she had “no idea” that she posed with a longtime Ku Klux Klan member. Over the weekend, photos circulated on social media of Loeffler with Chester Doles at a campaign event on Friday. Doles marched with the Hammerskins—a neo-Nazi group—at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. “Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for,” campaign spokesperson Stephen Lawson told the AP on Sunday. Earlier this year, Representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, ejected Doles from one of her rallies. In a statement, Doles told the AP he had “publicly renounced racism on several occasions in the past couple of years.” Loeffler, along with fellow Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), faces a tight Jan. 5 runoff election that could determine control of the Senate.
