Republican presidential candidates are returning donations tied to
a white supremacist group purportedly cited by Dylann Storm Roof, the
man authorities have charged with killing nine people at a historic
black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Over the weekend, an online document emerged written by someone
using the name Dylann Roof – posting to a website registered using
Roof’s mother’s home address – with a lengthy, racist message. Of
particular interest, the writer pointed to the Council of Conservative
Citizens as a source of racist information.

That wouldn’t be particularly relevant to electoral politics, were it
not for the fact that the Council of Conservative Citizens’ president,
Earl Holt III, turns out to be a generous Republican donor. The New York
Times reported this morning:

The leader of a white supremacist group that has been linked to Dylann
Roof, the suspect in the murder of nine African-Americans in a
Charleston, S.C., church last week, has donated tens of thousands of
dollars to Republican campaigns, including those of 2016 presidential
contenders such as Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Rand Paul, records show.

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Of course, it is only a *coincidence* that the leader of the white
supremacist group donated to Republican presidential candidates, and
other Republican campaigns, because, as everyone knows, the Republican
party is not the party of white racists. Right. Snerk.