Paul Gosar’s Staffer Is Reportedly a Follower of Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes

With how drastically extreme the conservative movement has become, it is sometimes easy to forget how radical the Republican Party truly is, and what kinds of vicious ideologies it is welcoming. Talking Points Memo has revealed the extent this has come to: Far-right Republican Representative Paul Gosar’s office has been infiltrated, or perhaps in his eyes enhanced by, a devotee of a prominent neo-Nazi.

Gosar’s digital director since 2021, Wade Searle, is a follower of white supremacist leader Nick Fuentes, according to TPM.

Fuentes leads what is known as the “Groyper Army,” a loosely organized far-right group dedicated toward white nationalism and hate. TPM has found Searle, a loyal Gosar staffer, to be a strong subscriber to Fuentes and his white supremacist movement.

Searle denies the allegations. TPM says it stands by its reporting.

On Fuentes’s America First streaming show, for instance, Searle was a fervent listener and even moderator of the chat room, says the TPM report.

“You are our voice!” Searle allegedly boasted to Fuentes during an online stream. Searle paid $150 to plaster the note onto Fuentes’s screen during his stream—after joining hordes of other viewers in pledging their fealty to Fuentes and his movement.

Here’s how Fuentes directed Searle and other viewers through the pledge:

Raise your right hand. “I swear my undying allegiance to Nicholas J. Fuentes and the America First movement, so help me God.” Raise your hand. Hold it high. “I swear I will defend the white race, my nation America, and my savior Jesus Christ, and my loyalty to the America First movement, Nicholas J. Fuentes, so help me God.”

Such a crazed pledge is concerning, given the gravity of such a movement and what it stands for.

“The Groypers are essentially the equivalent of neo-Nazis,” Nicole Hemmer, a historian and expert on the far right, told TPM. “They are attached to violent events like Jan. 6. Nick Fuentes, as sort of the organizer of the Groypers, expresses Holocaust denialism, white supremacy, white nationalism, pretty strong anti-women bigotry, he calls for a kind of return to Twelfth Century Catholicism. They’re an extremist group that is OK with violence.”

And this is the type of ideology that Searle allegedly embraces: the type of ideology Gosar has always flirted with and now spends taxpayer dollars to employ.

“A kind of even sub rosa identification of Groypers as congressional aides is the same as having Holocaust deniers, or alt righters, or, you know, Aryan Nations people,” Hemmer continued. “It’s as extreme and as racist as you get in the United States.”

Tellingly, the far-right staffer started the very day after Gosar was removed from House committees for posting a video depicting him cutting Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword. A censure like that is generally meant to rein someone in, but Gosar dug his heels in further, hiring Searle, who bows down to a man who has proudly said he’s “just like Hitler.”

But the story here is not just about Gosar hiring someone with close ties to a major neo-Nazi; it’s also about how he himself has had such ties, too. Gosar has appeared at Fuentes’s two most recent “America First” conferences—in person in 2021, virtually in 2022. In July 2021, Gosar used congressional letterhead to write directly to the FBI and complain about Fuentes’s inclusion on the no-fly list. Gosar has referred to Fuentes as “Nick,” in formal statements before—not something a member of Congress would do if they lacked familiarity or connection.

If there is to be any scarlet letter in politics, it ought to be for Nazis. Instead, Gosar has snuggled up warmly toward that exact movement.

This article has been updated.

The Republicans’ trumped-up investigation into Joe Biden has gone from bad to worse, as a top informant has apparently gone MIA.

House Republicans have been investigating the president and his family for months but have been unable to provide any actual evidence linking Biden to any wrongdoing.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer has led the charge, releasing a 65-page memo last week accusing the Bidens of influence peddling in Romania, and Biden’s son Hunter of having business deals in China. All of those claims are based on information the committee says it has received from anonymous sources.

Except … one of those sources has now gone missing. “Well, unfortunately, we can’t track down the informant,” Comer told host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “We’re hopeful that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant. The whistleblower is very credible.”

Even Bartiromo seemed a little confused. “Hold on a second, Congressman. Did you just say that the whistleblower or the informant is now missing?” she asked.

Comer said he was “hopeful” they could find the informant again, and said that informants are “kind of in the spy business,” so they could be difficult to keep track of.

Comer has repeatedly said Biden was involved in shady business dealings, but when pressed, he has always had to admit that he has no actual proof. Since releasing the memo last week, he has insisted that his informants will provide him with concrete evidence soon.

While Bartiromo seemed content to take Comer’s words at face value, her colleagues have not been so forgiving. Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy called out Comer’s lack of evidence last week.

“You don’t actually have any facts to that point. You’ve got some circumstantial evidence,” Doocy said Thursday morning. “And the other thing is, of all those names, the one person who didn’t profit is—there’s no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally.”

And now that an informant has gone AWOL, we may never get that so-called evidence.

The United States is barreling closer and closer to defaulting on its debt. Will President Joe Biden cave in negotiations with Republicans?

So far, the president has maintained he won’t negotiate on the debt ceiling, but the closer we get to the deadline, the less clear that is.

Reuters reported late Thursday, citing two anonymous sources, that White House officials think they will have to accept some spending cuts or spending caps in order to make a deal.

Biden also may have been hinting at budget cuts himself in an event this week. “We should be cutting spending and lowering the deficit without a needless crisis, in a responsible way,” he said at an event in New York on Thursday.

The president postponed a meeting with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy originally scheduled for Friday. But aides for the White House and the House and Senate leaders met Friday and will meet over the weekend, according to presidential spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, who said there was “progress” in the talks.

During her daily press briefing, she did not say what had been discussed during negotiations, but she said that Biden remained firm in his refusal to compromise on the debt ceiling more generally.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the United States could run out of money to pay its bills as soon as June 1, earlier than initially anticipated, unless the debt ceiling is raised or suspended. In a letter to Congress two weeks ago, she said it was “imperative” for the government to act as soon as possible.

Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a protracted battle over the debt limit, which the GOP has indicated it’s willing to hold hostage in order to reduce government spending. Biden has staunchly maintained that the U.S. has to pay its bills, but there have been indications in recent days that he is willing to compromise on budget cuts.

Jean-Pierre said Friday that the budget negotiations are separate from discussions about the debt ceiling. But it would be disappointing if Biden did compromise on his budget. His plan included ambitious goals for expanding childcare assistance, health insurance, and wealth taxes—all things that would benefit the U.S. but that Republicans want to slash.

But with the deadline moving ever closer, can he pull it off?

Just weeks ago, Ron DeSantis made it legal in Florida to conceal-carry a gun without a permit, training, or even a background check.

And on Friday, he signed a bill to prevent credit card companies from tracking the sale of firearms and ammunition. The bill stops companies from helping track suspicious weapons purchases—an increasing concern while the United States is flooded with random shootings and mass shootings essentially every few hours.

Instead, DeSantis in rapid succession has made it easier for potentially violent people to conceal-carry guns with abandon, while making it more difficult for law enforcement to proactively respond when those carriers may have nefarious intentions.

Companies found in violation of the bill will be fined up to $10,000.

Credit card companies had expressed willingness to adopt the gun-tracking practice, which pretty much involves ascribing a distinct four-digit “merchant category code” for sales at gun businesses. Such codes are already used to distinguish purchases from oft-frequented places like grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants.

Consequently, while DeSantis claims the bill is a defense against big government, it really is just a stake he is laying on the issues of guns. If he was really so concerned about government overreach or mass data surveillance, he would ban the use of such codes outright. But the very limited purporting of principle is DeSantis’s entire brand. Also this week, he again escalated his war against Disney and its monorail, going not against universal corporate immunities or misdeeds but just Disney specifically—because he doesn’t like that it spoke out against his infamous and repressive “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Russia is pining to build on its budding relationship with American conservatives—literally.

Amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and the American Republican Party splitting on its support for the defending nation, Russian authorities apparently are launching construction of a special village outside Moscow dedicated to conservative-minded Americans and Canadians.

State outlet RIA Novosti reported the news Thursday. Timur Beslangurov, a Russian immigration lawyer, said the village would harbor the likes of some “200 families [who] want to emigrate for ideological reasons.”

That’s not all, apparently. Beslangurov claims tens of thousands of people with no Russian roots would like to move to Russia.

“The reason is the inculcation of radical values: Today they have 70 genders; it is not known what will happen next,” he said.

The Russian lawyer claimed that some of those tens of thousands want to move to Russia because they are traditional Catholics who “very strongly believe in the prophecy that Russia will remain the only Christian country in the world.”

According to the lawyer, the future expats would help fund the village.

Beslangurov’s remarks—manifesting from lazing in an armchair and letting late-night fruitcake programming blare mindlessly at you—mirror the broader posturing of Russia’s government as “traditional” in comparison to the West’s supposed loose liberalism. The red-in-the-face finger-pointing at America has led to some pretty exaggerated propaganda in the past:

On the other hand, Americans are in fact expressing increased desires to flee the United States—not because there are “70 genders” or too many vegetarians, but because of relentless and widespread attacks on abortion rights and LGBTQ people’s civil rights.

Conversely, Russia’s own “traditional” posturing has resulted in policies like policing the “demonstration” of LGBTQ “behavior,” banning Russians from suggesting that being gay is “normal,” and outlawing all forms of media that could be seen as promoting such “propaganda” (violations of the law could incur punishments up to $33,000 in fines, while nonresidents could be expelled from Russia). None of this includes the growing crackdown on free speech, especially when it comes to criticism of the government and the invasion of Ukraine.

Not a very warm environment for non-Russians to move to.