18:23

A white nationalist has apologized for robocalls in Utah calling independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin a “closet homosexual”.

Evan McMullin. Photograph: Rick Bowmer/AP

William Daniel Johnson is a Los Angeles-based lawyer and self-described white nationalist who was originally meant to be a delegate for Donald Trump at the Republican national convention.

On Monday, Johnson announced that he was putting out an automated call to Utah voters attacking McMullin, an independent conservative candidate who has become the unexpected frontrunner in the heavily Mormon state, according to recent polls.

“My name is William Johnson. I am a farmer and a white nationalist,” the robocalls said. “I make this call against Evan McMullin and in support of Donald Trump. Evan McMullin is an open borders, amnesty supporter.

“Evan has two mommies. His mother is a lesbian, married to another woman. Evan is okay with that. Indeed Evan supports the supreme court ruling legalizing gay marriage,” it continued. “Evan is over 40 years old and is not married and doesn’t even have a girlfriend.”

The call concluded: “I believe Evan is a closet homosexual. Don’t vote for Evan McMullin. Vote for Donald Trump. He will respect all women and be a president we can all be proud of.”

In an email to reporters Wednesday, Johnson said that he had disabled the robocalls and would not be sending them elsewhere.

“I am sorry for the mean-spirited message and I humbly retract its contents,” Johnson said.

“I sent the robocalls out because Utah is a strong family-values state and America and the west is gripped by an extreme and fatal malady: failure to marry and have children. The white birth rate is so astonishingly low that western civilization will soon cease to exist. I felt that Evan McMullin typified that perfidious mentality.”

He said that Donald Trump’s campaign had repudiated his robocall, and added that “many people from Utah and beyond have excoriated me for it as well.”

“Just as Donald Trump has issued a heart-felt apology for his past locker room talk, I too issue a heartfelt apology for this robocall. I should not have sent out. I am truly sorry,” he said.