Rep. Paul Gosar once again brought national attention to a far-right group and its efforts with his name as a participant, only to be later disavowed.
Gosar, R-Arizona, promoted an event in Tempe for the American Populist Union, a relatively new group popular with “Groypers,” which falls on a day revered by extremists: Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
Gosar’s office denied on Thursday that he planned to attend the group’s conference or respond to it in any way, although he had mentioned it on his Instagram account and the band bragged about it on their Twitter feed.
The denial came after his potential involvement was first reported by the Arizona Mirror and ricocheted to The Washington Post, Rolling Stone and MSNBC.
The APU said Gosar pulled out of the event due to a scheduling conflict.
The Anti-Defamation League presented the APU as “a Groyper-esque group that champions anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and views the modern GOP as a corrupt globalist conservative establishment.”
The latest installment comes days after Gosar sought to distance himself from Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist whose group Gosar addressed in person in 2021 and welcomed via video message in February. He told Politico that a staff member mistakenly sent the message to Fuentes’ group.
Gosar has been linked to a fundraiser with Fuentes which was later turned down.
Last year, he and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., were linked to forming an “America First” caucus on Capitol Hill that was scrapped after a rare bipartisan pushback.
Gosar’s bare-knuckle style of politics has long appealed to extremists in the United States and Britain and put him on the same side as authoritarians like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Last year, House Democrats removed him from committee duty after he echoed violent animation on social media that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, DN.Y., and to target President Joe Biden. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, called for an ethics investigation into Gosar over the matter.
His penchant for spreading the false narrative of a stolen US election in 2020 prompted similar calls for him to be questioned by the House Ethics Committee and the Select Committee examining the causes of the riot. from January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol. .
In a statement posted to its Twitter account on Thursday, the APU ripped “slanderous liars” in the media for noting that the April 20 Tempe event falls on Hitler’s birthday.
Vince Dao, chairman of the group, called it “a logistical decision made based on site availability – and nothing more.”
“Our team planners didn’t even know that April 20 (a day much better known for its connection to marijuana, frankly) was Hitler’s birthday. … We are not affiliated with ‘neo-Nazism’ or to “white nationalism.” We are authentic American conservatives who defend faith, family and tradition.
Contact reporter Ronald J. Hansen at [email protected] or 602-444-4493. Follow him on Twitter @ronaldjhansen.
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