Busted: Paul Gosar campaign consultant linked to antisemitism and white nationalism
The campaign committee of far-right Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is engaging a North Carolina firm whose owner proudly promotes white nationalism and antisemitic tropes, while pushing false narratives surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Gosar campaign has paid Southern Pines Strategies a total of $136,342 for “fundraising services” since 2020. The campaign’s most recent filing shows that a consulting firm owned by political consultant Noel Fritsch received $594 in the first quarter of 2024, spread out across nine payments ranging from $3.50 to $138.25, most recently on March 10.
In one recent X post, Fritsch sarcastically wrote, “Not shifty at all,” while resharing a post by an anonymous account calling attention to the fact that the Jewish owner of the World Trade Center broke with custom by not eating breakfast in the North Tower on the morning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack.
Commentary suggesting nefarious intentions and possible profit motives by Jews surrounding the Sept. 11 attack have been a staple of antisemitic discourse over the past decades, recycling millennia-old conspiracy theories about supposed malevolent control that engender hostility towards Jews.
READ: From 'really rich' to begging: Inside Trump's U-turn on one of his first campaign lies
In another recent post, Fritsch wrote that “October 7” — the date on which Hamas launched a brutal attack against Israel and took hundreds of hostages — “was just a time to crank the emotional manipulation all the way to eleven.” While Fritsch’s post does not specify who he believes is manipulating people’s emotions, it suggests a nefarious actor behind the scenes that is more powerful than Hamas.
Alon Milwicki, a senior research analyst at the extremism watchdog group Southern Poverty Law Center, told Raw Story that antisemitic content is increasingly prevalent on social media, including X.
“There is a compelling argument to be made that this rise has facilitated the normalization of detrimental stereotypes about Jewish individuals, including enduring tropes about their alleged control, manipulation, deceitfulness and greed,” he said. “These narratives are increasingly echoed by figures in positions of influence and authority, thereby ingraining themselves further into societal discourse and regrettably blurring the lines between fact and bigotry.”
Gosar has cultivated ties with election deniers and white nationalists, but he breaks with many in the far-right movement through his professed supporting Israel. The far-right congressman from Arizona voted in favor of a resolution supporting Israel in July 2023, while condemning “the vile, antisemitic hatred expressed by certain members.” He was referring to a statement by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) calling Israel “a racist state.”
The Gosar campaign could not be reached for comment for this story.
Gosar was among one of the most strident members of Congress to promote the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. He rallied supporters at a protest attended by armed militants outside a ballot-counting center in Phoenix following the November 2020 election. Later, Gosar was among a group of lawmakers who met with Trump at the White House on Dec. 21, 2020 to discuss a plan to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence into overturning the election.
Following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Gosar reportedly explored the possibility of launching an America First Caucus promoting “a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions,” although the plan was soon scrapped after it was leaked to the media.
Payments from the Gosar campaign to Fritsch’s firm — representing a cut from small-dollar donations — peaked at $84,798 in 2021, following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Fritsch told Raw Story he no longer does “business” with the Gosar campaign. But when informed that the Gosar campaign reported nine payments to his firm in the first three months of 2024, Fritsch declined to elaborate on what “fundraising services” he provided, suggesting the phrase is self-explanatory.
A parade of far-right candidates
In many ways, Fritsch has proven to be a close match with Gosar. Fritsch has worked for a roster of far-right candidates — all unsuccessful so far, with the exception of Gosar. They include Paul Nehlen, a congressional candidate embraced by white supremacists who sought to fill the seat formerly held by House Speaker Paul Ryan; Corey Stewart, a U.S. Senate candidate from Virginia who was linked to the white supremacist group League of the South; Roy Moore, whose 2017 campaign for U.S. Senate was derailed by sexual misconduct allegations; and Lauren Witzke, who openly courted white nationalists during her run for U.S. Senate from Delaware in 2020.
Overlapping with his political consulting work, in 2019 Fritsch launched National File, a news site that sometimes garners legitimate scoops such as a revelation about sexually explicit texts that sunk North Carolina Democrat Cal Cunningham’s 2020 bid for U.S. Senate. More often, the site features hit pieces against his clients’ political opponents and other Republican candidates deemed insufficiently conservative. Patrick Howley, the National File writer who landed the Cunningham story, has cycled through a host of conservative and conspiracy clickbait sites, and has come under scrutiny for serial antisemitic rants and tweets.
In February 2022, Fritsch’s National File published an adulatory profile written by Howley to celebrate the rise of the NSC-131, a neo-Nazi group that has terrorized Jews, LGBTQ+ people and migrants in New England. By December 2023, the group and its members would find itself on the receiving end of lawsuits filed by the attorneys general in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for alleged civil rights violations.
Howley’s article lauded NSC-131 for “distinguishing itself as part of a new vanguard of pro-White organizations determined to protect White people and stop the White genocide pushed by both the progressive left and the globalist corporatist Republican establishment.”
In a complaint filed in Suffolk County Superior Court in December 2023, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell alleged that NSC-131 members “have recently carried out a series of violent and otherwise unlawful club actions targeting those they have designated ‘enemies of our people’” by repeatedly attempting to “disrupt public events organized by LGBTQ+ groups, and interfere with the provision of emergency shelter to recent immigrants at local hotels.”
Reached by Raw Story, Fritsch doubled down on the white nationalist talking points in the NSC-131 profile, complaining in a phone text that “Amerikkka is so anti-white” and falsely claiming that Raw Story is joining forces with the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-hate group with a pro-Israel stance, to advocate “for the extermination of white identitarian interest groups.”
Gosar’s links to white nationalism
Gosar is no stranger to white nationalist groups. Less than two months after the failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, he spoke at the America First Political Action Conference organized by Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier who marched at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. At the end of Gosar’s speech, the young white nationalists attending the conference reportedly chanted his name.
Fuentes and Fritsch have crossed paths in the white nationalist milieu, although, according to Fritsch, they are more rivals than allies.
Fritsch’s National File sponsored an event in Washington, D.C. in February 2020 that coincided with the more mainstream Conservative Political Action Conference and featured Infowars conspiracy-trafficker Alex Jones. At the same time, Fuentes hosted the first America First Political Action Conference. Fritsch told Raw Story that Fuentes’ event was held at an undisclosed location, and he wound up waiting at a bar for some of the attendees who were acting secretive about where they had been. Fuentes also spoke at the event sponsored by National File, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The ties between Gosar and Fuentes go beyond his appearances at Fuentes’ events. Wade Searle, who previously served as digital director for Gosar, was an enthusiastic supporter of Fuentes, according to a 2023 report by Talking Points Memo.
Gosar has alternately courted and distanced himself from Fuentes. In 2022, after appearing in a pre-recorded video at the America First Political Action Conference, Gosar reportedly said, “I’ve given up… on dealing with Nick. Nick’s got a problem with his mouth.”
Fritsch told Raw Story the rift between Gosar and Fuentes stems from Fuentes’ lack of deference toward Gosar and others such as Michelle Malkin, a far-right commentator who has forged ties to both Fuentes’ Groyper movement and politicos such as Gosar and former congress member Steve King of Iowa.
“I think Fuentes didn’t want to take leadership from anyone,” Fritsch said. “That includes Malkin and Gosar. The consensus among most people is that he was a mule-headed diva who plays with his cats,” Fritsch told Raw Story.
Alignment on Jan. 6
Gosar and Fritsch also align in promoting false narratives surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Before police had cleared rioters from the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, Gosar tweeted, “This has all the hallmarks of Antifa provocation.” Later in 2021, Gosar pivoted from scapegoating “antifa” to the so-called “fed-surrection” narrative. The congressman reportedly wrote in a fundraising email that “facts are coming to light that the FBI might have had a hand in planning and carrying out that event.”
More recently, Gosar introduced a bill demanding that the FBI turn over documents on Ray Epps, a fellow Arizonan who became the focal point for conspiracy theories claiming that the attack was orchestrated by agents provocateurs working for the federal government.
Fritsch has similarly promoted false narratives that deflect responsibility for the attack from violent Trump supporters. One of Fritsch’s newest clients is Derrick Evans, who pleaded guilty to obstructing law enforcement at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and is running for Congress from West Virginia’s 1st District. The Evans campaign has paid Fritsch’s firm a total of $33,391 for “strategic management consulting” and “online fundraising fees” from January through March 2024, according to Evans’ most recent campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Evans faces incumbent Carol Miller in West Virginia’s May 14 Republican primary.
Evans published video in February of a man — previously identified by NBC News as John Banuelos — firing a pistol on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. Following the attack on the Capitol, Banuelos was arrested in Salt Lake City and charged with fatally stabbing another man. He reportedly told police in Salt Lake City that he had been at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Evans and Fritsch capitalized on the news break to boost Evans’ campaign while simultaneously promoting National File within the right-wing media ecosystem. The two men appeared on the “War Room with Steve Bannon” podcast hosted by Donald Trump’s former White House strategist.
“We all know that the people who are engaged in violence — the greatest amount of violence — were feds who were looking to try to meet and engender other people to do violence,” Fritsch told Bannon. “Therefore, the people who are rotting in prison right now — they are hostages that need to be freed.
“This is a war,” Fritsch continued. “The government, largely, is at war with the American people, Steve.”
Bannon, who on the eve of the attack on the U.S. Capitol accurately predicted that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” suggested to Fritsch that he was troubled about what he was hearing.
“There’s something just not right about this,” he said. “There’s so much about this J6 thing that’s not right.”
Neither Bannon nor Fritsch disclosed during the interview that Fritsch was working as a political consultant for the Evans campaign.
While calling for the release of Jan. 6 offenders as “political prisoners,” Fritsch also told Bannon that “there needs to be prosecutions of those federal provocateurs.” (Since the time of Fritsch and Evans’ appearance on Bannon’s show in February, Banuelos has been arrested and charged with discharging a firearm on Capitol grounds. No evidence has come to light indicating that he is a federal informant.)
Asked to explain why he believes that people convicted of violent crimes or being held in pre-trial detention under a judicial order should be freed, Fritsch told Raw Story: “Feds who engaged in false imprisonment should be charged.”
A report by NBC News found that among the hundreds of people charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack, only 15 are being held in pretrial detention. Among them is Banuelos. Others include a man separately charged with plotting to murder FBI agents after Jan. 6, and defendants variously accused of hurling an explosive device, swinging a lead pipe and deploying chemical spray on officers.
“Are you aware that Ryan Samsel is rotting in a prison cell?” Fritsch asked Raw Story.
Samsel is awaiting sentencing in jail following his conviction on eight felony counts, including three for assaulting officers. The government presented evidence showing that during the initial breach of the Capitol grounds, Samsel pushed barricades into Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, causing her to fall and hit her head on the stairs behind her and sustain a concussion. Later, he threw a two-by-four at Metropolitan police officers and grabbed an officer’s shield.
Prior to Samsel’s trial last fall, U.S. District Court Judge Jia M. Cobb turned down a request by the defendant for pretrial release.
“Mr. Samsel is charged with committing several serious felony offenses and has a history of convictions for violent conduct (and an outstanding warrant for assault), which supports the detention order’s conclusion that he poses a danger to the community and counsels against his release,” she wrote in the order.
READ: Bill Barr: The GOP's master 'fixer' for decades exposed