Congressman Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who is a fan-favorite of the conspiracy-minded right, defended the racist troll he invited to Tuesday’s State of the Union on Fox Business Network by saying “he’s not a holocaust denier” — even though he is literally a holocaust denier.

Gaetz took flack for bringing the alt-right media figure Charles “Chuck” Johnson to President Donald Trump’s first SOTU this week, after The Daily Beast released a report on the Florida congressman’s peculiar guest. While Gaetz initially tried to diminish his connection to the internet troll — saying Johnson randomly showed-up in his office and basically asked for a ticket — he has admitted the two share similar views on issues like cryptocurrencies and marijuana.

When confronted by Fox Business host Neil Cavuto, Gaetz said he was unaware that Johnson was known as a prominent alt-righter, before falsely downplaying his extremist views:

“Some of the claims against Mr. Johnson are not accurate. He’s not a holocaust denier, he’s not a white supremacist. Those are unfortunate characterizations of him, but I did not know he was as perhaps as infamous and controversial as he was when he came by to my office… He was a polite and just entirely appropriate guest I thought.”

Cavuto continued pushing Gaetz on the issue, asking, “So alt-right or not, it didn’t matter to you?”

The congressman replied by saying Johnson isn’t “guilty of the things” people accuse him of, but added he wouldn’t invite him again as he wanted to bring his father to the next State of the Union.

However, Gaetz’s claim that Johnson isn’t a holocaust denier is entirely false, and he is very “guilty of the things” people accuse him of being. The self-declared “journalist” — he’s not — has a history of repeatedly using the n-word on Twitter, a site he is now banned from after asking his followers for money to help him “take out” a leading Black Lives Matter activist.

From there, his history somehow gets worse.

Johnson has explicitly denied the fact that Nazi Germany killed millions of Jews in the Holocaust, outlining his thoughts on the genocide when asked on a Reddit AMA for comment on “the Holocaust, WW2, and the JQ [Jewish Question]”:

“I do not and never have believed the six million figure. I think the Red Cross numbers of 250,000 dead in the camps from typhus are more realistic. I think the Allied bombing of Germany was a ware crime. I agree with David Cole about Auschwitz and the gas chambers not being real. I read the German War (highly recommend), Bloodlands, Mein Kampf, and all of David Irving.”

When answering the bit about the “Jewish Question” — which is an alt-right term referencing the conspiracy theory that Jews control the world — Johnson said, “I support Israel as a Jewish state and Zionism as a concept. I’m pro-ethno state, generally.”

The racist troll also has a long history of hanging out with leading alt-right figures like Richard Spencer, pushing skull-science white supremacist ideas, arguing that black people killed by police deserved it, doxing or attempting to dox people he disagrees with, and even calling Obama “clearly gay.”

Suffice it to say, Johnson is certainly guilty of almost everything he’s been accused of. Considering the GOP lawmaker has a history of apologizing for making “bad decisions” — like that time he was arrested for a DUI in Florida — maybe he should bite the bullet here and own up to bringing a white supremacist to one of America’s most hallowed political gatherings.

Watch above, via Fox Business Network.

[images via screengrab]

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