ADL Calls For ‘Full Investigation’ Into GOP Rep. Paul Gosar Staffer’s Reported Links to Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes
The Anti-Defamation League on Monday called for a “full investigation” into the office of Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) reportedly employing a “prominent Groyper” with direct links to Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes as his digital director since May of 2022.
The ADL shared the Talking Points Memo report which revealed the connection between the far-right neo-fascist “Groyper Army” and Gosar’s office and added, “If true, it’s deeply disturbing that @RepGosar’s digital director is reportedly behind a secret ‘Groyper army’ account and an active supporter of white supremacist leader Nick Fuentes.”
“This needs a full investigation. Hate and extremism have no place in government- at any level,” the ADL concluded.
https://twitter.com/ADL/status/1658184743467245585
Talking Points Memo investigative reporter Hunter Walker detailed the links between Wade Searle, the Gosar staffer in question, and the far-right moniker “Chikken.”
Walker wrote, “TPM has uncovered an extensive digital trail of interconnected Groyper social media pages using variations of the ‘ChickenRight’ and ‘Chikken’ handles that can be linked to Wade Searle, who works as the digital director for Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), one of the most extreme, far-right members of Congress.”
“ChickenRight’s posting on far-right websites and Searle’s alleged involvement with Fuentes occurred before and after he started working in Gosar’s Capitol Hill office. Gosar, his chief of staff, his press secretary, and Searle have not responded to multiple detailed requests for comment,” the report adds.
Fuentes, the leader of the so-called Groyper Army, hosted Gosar as a keynote speaker at a far-right conference he held last year as counter-programming to CPAC. Groypers are a loose network of alt-right figures who are vocal supporters of white nationalist ideals, often trolling mainstream conservative events with the aim of moving conservativism in the direction of white nationalism.
Fuentes, who has also denied the Holocaust, supports “the closure of the U.S. borders to immigrants while opposing “liberal” values such as feminism and LGBTQ+ rights. Fuentes views these societal changes as the “bastardized Jewish subversion of the American creed,” according to the ADL. Fuentes’s rhetoric often takes on violent tones and calls for the eradication of groups he disagrees with.
In November 2022, Fuentes sparked international headlines when he and anti-Semitic rapper Kanye West dined with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Walker detailed the impact of the new revelation and the nature of Searle’s online activity in support of the Gropyers. “The presence of a prominent Groyper in Gosar’s office would indicate the congressman’s ties to the white supremacist movement are far deeper than previously known. Online, ChickenRight built a following of more than 20,000 people on far-right websites while posting extremist, anti-Semitic, racist, and anti-vaccine content,” Walker explained.
Gosar’s office has been plagued by scandal in recent years, often surrounding his close connection to white nationalists. In September of 2022, he shared the trailer for a film by far-right documentarian Paul Escandon featuring Fuentes and declared the film proof of “persecution against Christians and Conservatives by the Biden Regime.” In April, Gosar’s official House email sent out a newsletter promoting “an article from a Holocaust-denying website that praised him for condemning the ‘Jewish warmongers’ backing US support for the ‘Nazi’ regime in Ukraine.”
Read the full TPM report here.
