Sen. Loeffler Responds After Ossoff Accuses Her of Campaigning with a Klansman
Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia labeled Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff a “pathological liar” over his attempt to claim she campaigned with a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
The latest salvos in the high-stakes battle for Georgia’s two Senate seats in Tuesday’s special election began Wednesday when Ossoff started lobbing accusations at Loeffler. Loeffler is facing Democratic Rev. Raphael Warnock, while Ossoff is trying to unseat Republican Sen. David Perdue.
“Kelly Loeffler campaigned with a klansman,” Ossoff tweeted Wednesday evening.
His comment, which went viral, apparently refers to a selfie of the senator taken by Chester Doles, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
FOX News walked up rolling live, and I appreciated the free air time!
Also, Kelly Loeffler campaigned with a klansman. pic.twitter.com/ZlmO0xoFvr
— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) December 31, 2020
“She is stooping to these vicious personal attacks to distract from the fact that she’s been campaigning with a former member of the Ku Klux Klan,” Ossoff said, according to Politico.
“We deserve better than that here in Georgia.”
Loeffler said that she did not know who Doles was at the time of the photo and that Doles was later removed from the event where the photo was taken.
She then poured scorn on Ossoff.
“Every Georgian knows that Jon Ossoff is a pathological liar. And he’s a trust-fund socialist who’s never had a job, other than through the Chinese Communist Party,” she said, referencing allegations that Ossoff did business with a company linked to China’s Communist Party.
“If he’s going to bring up lies about who I’m campaigning with, I’m going to talk about the truth about who he’s campaigning with,” she said.
“He’s campaigning with Raphael Warnock, who has a past with child abuse and domestic abuse, who has celebrated Jeremiah Wright, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, James Cone, Louis Farrakhan.
“He’s attacked our police, our military. He’s attacked Israel, small businesses and every single Georgian.”
Even CNN’s fact-checker said Ossoff had it wrong.
“This is false. A former member of the KKK took a photo with Loeffler while she was campaigning earlier this month. Loeffler’s campaign said the senator did not know who the man was and would have removed him from the event had she known,” CNN reported.
“This is not, at all, the same as ‘campaigning with a klansman,’ as Ossoff claimed. Politicians often take pictures with people they don’t know.”
“Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for,” Loeffler campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson said of the photograph in a statement to the Journal-Constitution.
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