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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
World
Mythili Sampathkumar

Donald Trump's election fraud chief will continue to write for Breitbart while overseeing commission

Donald Trump's election fraud commission chief is a paid columnist for conservative Breitbart News outlet. 

Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State and head of Mr Trump's Commission on Election Integrity, told the Kansas City Star: "I get paid for my columns...just like you're paid." 

He has thus far published seven columns on the site, four of them concerning immigration. 

The far-right leaning site is led by Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist who vacated his position in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia that resulted in the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer and two Virginia State Police officers Berke Bates and H Jay Cullen. 

Mr Trump was heavily criticised for his reactions to the incident after he repeatedly said "many sides" were responsible for the violence - neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and white supremacists as well as those who were there to make sure a statue of Civil War Confederate General Robert E Lee was removed from a local park. 

Also re-joining Breitbart News is former National Security editor Sebastian Gorka, who just left his undefined position at the White House. 

"I think Breitbart.com appeals to anyone who is Republican...it appeals to a broad spectrum of conservative readers," said Mr Kobach. 

He told the newspaper that Breitbart News approached him in June 2017 to write a regular column. He continues to serve in both his state and election fraud commission positions. 

In his latest piece, Mr Kobach wrote about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Act, a programme intended to protect people who were brought into the US illegally as children, many of them as infants, from deportation and allow them to obtain work permits. 

There are roughly 1.8 million young people, so-called "Dreamers," in the US who could qualify for the programme. 

Mr Kobach wrote: "DACA is inconsistent with the rule of law, inconsistent with the president's own promises, and inconsistent with the president's principled stand against illegal immigration". 

The site, according to former Editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, became a "go-to" for white supremacists and the "alt-right" under Mr Bannon's previous reign. 

He wrote in the Daily Wire that the site is "pushing white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness, and the comment section turning into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers". 

Mr Shapiro this was not the intent of the late founder Andrew Brieitbart. 

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, a legal advocacy organisation which specialises in protection of civil rights, has labeled the site as one that "embraces...racist ideas". 

Mr Kobach said: “I find that criticism to be completely baseless and if Breitbart had any connection to white nationalism I would not write for the site. And the Southern Poverty Law Center regularly slanders organizations and individuals … and accuses them of having connections to white supremacy,”

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