Trump embraces Republican candidate funded by alleged white supremacist

Roy Moore handed hundreds of thousands of dollars by former League of the South board member Michael David Peroutka

Roy Moore greets supporters at an election-night rally on September 26 in Montgomery, Alabama (Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s newest Republican ally has been funded by a man who used to be part of a white supremacist hate group, it has emerged.

Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican Senate nominee, was recently described as a “great guy” by Mr Trump after beating the US President’s preferred nominee, Luther Strange, in a 27 September election.

“Spoke to Roy Moore of Alabama last night for the first time. Sounds like a really great guy who ran a fantastic race. He will help to #MAGA (Make America Great Again)!” Mr Trump said after the Republican firebrand’s victory.

But it has been revealed by TPM that Mr Moore has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Michael David Peroutka, a former member of white nationalist group the League of the South.

Nearly two-thirds of Mr Moore’s funding in his race to become chief justice of the Alabama Supreme court in 2012 came from Mr Peroutka, local media reported. The 70-year-old’s own website lists Mr Peroutka as someone who endorses him.

In 2012, Mr Peroutka described himself as a “proud member of the League of the South”, an organisation which states its ultimate goal is “a free and independent Southern republic”.

Branded a Neo-Confederate “racist hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the League advocates a “Southern Culture” built on an inherently Anglo-Celtic nature.

Its extreme right-wing agenda includes “stigmatising perversity" such as homosexuality and promiscuity and having Islam banned.

It was also one of the key organisers of the white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville that descended into violence and left one opposition activist dead.

Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT civil rights charity, called Mr Peroutka an “active white supremacist and secessionist sympathiser” due to his links to the group, an accusation the lawyer described as “absurd”.

In 2014, Mr Peroutka announced he had resigned from the League’s board of directors and was no longer a member after discovering other members’ statement “contrary to his beliefs”.

Mr Moore himself has regularly expressed extremist views, including the belief that the 9/11 attacks may have been a punishment from God and that “homosexual conduct should be illegal”.

He recently spoke of “reds and yellows” on the campaign trail – an apparent reference to native Americans and Asians – and was suspended from the state supreme court last year after ordering judges to ignore the federal Supreme Court ruling in favour of gay marriage.

After Mr Moore’s victory in the Republican Senate nominee race, Mr Trump swiftly deleted tweets endorsing the establishment candidate Mr Strange.

Mr Moore has promised to support the President and his agenda as long as he advances “our culture, our country”.