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GOP U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart has fired a top campaign aide, Noel Fritsch, who had helped bring a far-right presence to the campaign’s social media and strategy.

Fritsch, who lives in North Carolina, responded by text to a request for an interview, saying: “Are you at liberty to tell me how you learned?” but did not return the phone call seeking comment.

Stewart, facing an uphill fight against Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., confirmed to the newspaper that he let Fritsch go, but declined to say why.

“I can confirm that he’s no longer with the campaign as of Aug. 31,” Stewart said Monday.

Fritsch had previously worked for candidates including Paul Nehlen, an anti-Semitic politician in Wisconsin who has run against GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin; and Roy Moore, the failed GOP Senate candidate in Alabama who faced allegations that he sexually preyed on young women years ago. Fritsch also worked on Stewart’s GOP primary run for governor in 2017.

Stewart has walked back praise he previously offered to Nehlen, saying he did not know Nehlen was anti-Semitic when Stewart called him his “personal hero.” Stewart traveled to Alabama in December to campaign for Moore, who lost the race to Democrat Doug Jones.

Fritsch made a series of controversial social media posts that drew negative attention to Stewart’s campaign. Another Stewart campaign aide, Rick Shaftan, has a history of social media posts that includes calling the NAACP a “more violent” version of the KKK and saying only a “fool” would start a business in a black neighborhood. John Whitbeck, the immediate past chairman of the Virginia GOP, called Shaftan’s posts “despicable.”