White supremacist Trump supporter targets McMullin in Utah robocalls

by Ben Kamisar - 11/01/16 10:52 AM ET

A white supremacist supporting Donald Trump has launched a series of robocalls in Utah meant to frame independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin as gay.

{mosads}William Daniel Johnson, who identifies himself as a “white nationalist” during the call, is looking to steer voters in the socially conservative state away from McMullin by questioning the sexuality of both him and his mother.

“Evan McMullin is an open-borders amnesty supporter. Evan has two mommies — his mother is a lesbian married to another woman. Evan is OK with that. Indeed, Evan supports the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage” the call says, according to audio posted by the Deseret News.

“Evan is over 40 years old and is not married and doesn’t even have a girlfriend. I believe Evan is a closeted 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.”

Trump’s campaign condemned the call in a statement to CNN on Monday, noting the campaign had no knowledge of Johnson’s actions.

McMullin’s mother divorced his father and later married a woman, according to the Deseret News. His campaign denied the allegations about his sexuality in a statement to the paper, which said that his service in the CIA delayed his desire to have a family.

On gay marriage, he told Bloomberg earlier this year that he believes that marriage is between one man and one woman, but he respect’s the court’s decision and wants to “move on.”

The former CIA agent is mounting an improbable bid to win Utah and other western states in the hopes of winning the election if no candidate reaches the majority of electoral votes. He’s done so largely by antagonizing Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, and casting himself as the alternative for Republicans concerned by his candidacy.

McMullin, who is Mormon, is running best in Utah, a state with a significant Mormon population. He trails Trump by just 6 points in the state, according to RealClearPolitics’s average of recent polls.

That’s drawn the ire of Trump, who bashed McMullin as a “puppet” of the anti-Trump Republicans in an interview last weekend.

Johnson, the white nationalist paying for the robocalls, was initially named a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention, but the Trump campaign said that was an error and he resigned from the post.

Tags Donald Trump