Earl Holt, leader of a rightwing group that inspired Charleston shooter Dylann Roof, has contributed $65,000 to Republicans running for president.

Holt, president of the Missouri-based Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), has supported the campaigns of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and others, according to The Guardian.

The man who has said black people were “the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world” has, since 2012, contributed $8,500 to Cruz and his Jobs, Growth and Freedom Fund political action committee.

He also has given $1,750 to RandPAC, the political action committee of Paul; $2,000 to the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney; and $1,500 to Santorum.

According to FEC and state filings, 24 Republicans have received contributions from Holt, reported The Guardian.

It isn’t just Republican politicians who have been connected with the Council of Conservative Citizens. In her 2009 book Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, right-wing activist Ann Coulter defended the group by writing that “There is no evidence on its Web page that the modern incarnation of the CCC supports segregation. Apart from some aggressive reporting on black-on-white crimes—the very crimes that are aggressively hidden by the establishment media—there is little on the CCC website suggesting” that the group is racist.

In an online racist manifesto attributed to Roof, CofCC was cited as his source for learning about “brutal black on white murders.” With reference to that, Roof is alleged to have written, prior to his murder of nine African-Americans at Emanuel AME Church: “At this moment I realized that something was very wrong… I have never been the same since that day.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff, Danny Biederman

To Learn More:

Leader of Group Cited in 'Dylann Roof Manifesto' Donated To Top Republicans (by Jon Swaine, The Guardian)

Dylann Roof’s Segregation Inspiration and the Politicians Who Pander to Them (by Olivia Nuzzi and John Avlon, Daily Beast)