One of the United States’ most prominent white nationalists, William Daniel Johnson, was selected by the Donald Trump campaign to be one of its delegates to the Republican National Convention on Monday—before being unceremoniously dumped by a day later.
Johnson, who leads the neo-Nazi American Freedom Party, was selected as a delegate for California on Donald Trump’s slate, Mother Jones reported Tuesday, despite openly espousing extremist, white supremacist politics in his application to become a delegate.
However, after news of his selection broke, Tim Clark, Trump’s California chairperson, informed Johnson that he is no longer “being considered for a delegate position,” according to the Daily Beast.
Johnson then sent an email in which he “hereby resigned as a delegate” and said he respects the GOPs decision to dump him.
“I don’t want to negatively impact Trump’s efforts,” he told The Daily Beast. “And his campaign has determined that my involvement is not best for his efforts. So I accept that. We live in a society where white people hate white people who like white people. And me being a white nationalist doesn’t sit well with some people … So I understand his campaign’s concerns, and I support … (Trump’s decision) not having me as a delegate.”
However, the Trump campaign said in a statement released Tuesday that “a database error led to the inclusion of a potential delegate that had been rejected and removed from the campaign’s list in February 2016” in a possible reference to Johnson.
In an exclusive interview with teleSUR last year, Johnson described Trump as “the real deal.”
“Virtually all pro-white nationalists are at least somewhat supportive of Donald Trump and most are even enthusiastic,” he said.