Last week, photographic evidence[1] revealed that Defend Texas Liberty PAC, a major donor to political candidates, held an extensive meeting with self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.
Our fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles, and cousins fought the Nazis. Many of these men did not get to return home. For Defend Texas Liberty PAC, who purports to be “the premiere political action committee for conservative citizens in Texas,” would meet with someone parroting their evils is a betrayal to the millions of Republican voters in Texas for whom they claim to speak. That association becomes even more concerning given that Fuentes himself declared in a speech in front of the US Capitol, “I am no longer a conservative, I am a nationalist, and we are going to destroy the GOP!”[2]
Fuentes’s anti-American views are well documented. Following the Biden Administration’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan, Fuentes commented that “The Taliban is a conservative, religious force, the U.S. is godless and liberal...The defeat of the U.S. government in Afghanistan is unequivocally a positive development.”[3]
I personally fought the Taliban. I am equally disgusted that Defend Texas Liberty and its donors think it acceptable to meet with someone who supports and cheers on the Taliban against our troops, my brothers, and sisters in arms.
Fuentes is an avowed Holocaust denier, and antisemite. In a speech given in July of this year, Fuentes said “Jews may use lies to circumvent the gentiles. Do you think it might be a problem that the people that are running your banks, that are making the movies your children watch, so you think it’s a problem that they believe all Christians must die? … We’re in a holy war, and I will tell you this: Because we’re willing to die in the holy war, we will make them die in the holy war. And they will go down. We have God on our side, and they will go down with their Satanic master. They have no future in America.”
Speaking about the use of the term “fascism” in society, Fuentes said “If ANTIFA were marching down the streets and they were waiving the banner of Benito Mussolini or Francisco Franco I’d be joining them…. [If] they were saying, you know, “Catholic Fascism now!” I would join them; I would become a part of ANTIFA. Take over the country, storm D.C., take over the capitol and raise the banner of Mussolini and Franco.”[4]
While some have dismissed the reports from the Texas Tribune and Quorum Report, due to the ideological slant of those organizations, the claims were further confirmed in a statement by Kyle Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse, an employee of Texas Gun Rights, whose offices share a building with Defend Texas Liberty, stated that, “As soon as I was made aware that Fuentes was in the building, I asked my supervisor to be excused for the day. I and the entire department were thankfully dismissed. Fuentes has attacked me personally, and his hideous views denigrate the memory and legacy of my Jewish family members, some of whom were victims of the Nazis holocaust." [5]
The party of General/President Eisenhower is no place for Holocaust deniers, antisemites, or self-proclaimed fascists. America did not cross two oceans fighting a world war only to allow this kind of evil to return to the world in our name. “Conservative citizens of Texas” must stand up and speak out about what is being done to our nation, our state, and the Republican Party in their name.
While the major donor to Defend Texas Liberty PAC has given his assurances that this was a “blunder” by Defend Texas Liberty PAC’s President, this is far from an isolated incident. Defend Texas Liberty PAC spent $160,500 to help elect Bryan Slaton to the Texas House of Representatives. Slaton became the first Representative to be expelled from the Legislature in over 90 years when it became known that he heavily intoxicated his 19-year-old female staffer, sexually assaulted her, and used state of Texas resources to threaten her not to talk to authorities.
With both Slaton and Fuentes, Defend Texas Liberty PAC’s board of directors and staff either acted with full awareness, or exercised a level of negligence so staggering it pushes credulity to the breaking point.
More than a week after the Fuentes story broke, Defend Texas Liberty PAC announced that former Tarrant County State Representative Johnathan Stickland had been removed as President of the organization. This is not a situation where a scapegoat firing can absolve the organization of its sins, especially since Stickland remains as Consultant for Defend Texas Liberty PAC’s umbrella organization, Pale Horse Strategies, and his replacement Luke Macias, served as Bryan Slaton’s political consultant for five years.
In light of these facts, I call on all elected officials who received donations from Defend Texas Liberty PAC to align their actions with their recent statements by donating any funds that they have received from Defend Texas Liberty PAC to Friends of the Israel Defense Force[6], the only organization in the United States authorized to collect charitable contributions on behalf of the Israel Defense Forces.
At time of writing, the Republican Party of Texas has yet to issue a statement on this issue, despite having accepted $257,500 from Defend Texas Liberty PAC. As the governing body of the Republican Party of Texas, the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) bears the primarily responsible for raising and spending money to get Republicans elected. It matters where the money comes from. If the party’s major donors are consorting with anti-American groups or individuals, that is a problem, and one they must address.
Too much is at stake for even the appearance of impropriety or affiliation with America’s enemies.
It was my intention to call on all Texas Republicans to contact their SREC members, asking them to join Vice-Chair Meyrs and the 13 SREC members who signed a letter demanding an investigation into the party’s donors and relationships with Defend Texas Liberty PAC and its related companies. However, the day after those members released their letter, Republican Party of Texas staff removed all contact information for SREC members from their website, preventing Texas Republicans from contacting their party representatives.
As the saying goes, “there are no coincidences in Austin”
[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/08/nick-fuentes-kyle-rittenhouse-jonathan-stickland/
[2] https://x.com/txconservreport/status/1711845141810495616?s=46&t=FCGVCSMlxqwGuhfuBiiJ8A
[3] https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/live-afghanistan-taliban-news/card/hv1U2m0zceuobgYAiwiR
[4]https://twitter.com/VitoComedy/status/1680852059741106176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1680852059741106176%7Ctwgr%5E72a2f17fbf108210f284866606202dff1658a2da%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnewrepublic.com%2Fpost%2F174372%2Fwhite-supremacist-nick-fuentes-calls-holy-war-jews
[5] https://twitter.com/thisiskyler/status/1711874482464252224?s=61&t=ucS6XqfH96e3N7n4bvuOGw
[6] https://support.fidf.org/site/Donation2?df_id=1647&mfc_pref=T&1647.donation=form1