May. 13, 2026, 5:07 PM EDT

Ku Klux Klan denialism is in vogue for the MAGA movement these days.

As the GOP uses Jim Crow-like racial profiling and voter suppression tactics such as gerrymanderingsome Republicans are engaged in a campaign of obfuscation and misinformation to downplay allegations of racism.

And it increasingly seems that some of President Donald Trump’s supporters want to use falsehoods about the KKK to advance their goals.

Last week’s fact-free diatribe from Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., about the KKK supposedly being a leftist organization is a prime example. As I recently wroteRepublicans have used the Justice Department’s dubious indictment of the anti-racist Southern Poverty Law Center to falsely portray racist extremism, which the SPLC tracks and investigates, as either nonexistent or a liberal contrivance. This tactic mirrors rhetoric deployed by conservatives who sought to deny the threat of the KKK during its rise, or even its mere existence.

The aforementioned falsehoods about the SPLC were the subject of an exchange Hageman had with conservative podcaster Winston Marshall in which she made the demonstrably false claim that the KKK, Nazis and the Aryan Nation are “far-left organizations” and “always have been.”

Hageman told Marshall:

The Aryan Nation, the Nazis and the KKK are not far-right organizations. Those are far-left organizations, and they always have been. The KKK was created and started by the Democrats in the United States to prevent Blacks from being able to participate in the political arena, if you will. So I’m going to say they’ve never been associated with the right; they’ve always been associated with the left.

This is the kind of derangement that would make a reputable historian weep.

And you can see in Hageman’s comments why speaking of politics in directional terms (i.e., “right” vs. “left”) is flawed. The KKK has never been liberal and essentially has always been a conservative group of Christian white supremacists. Some Republicans — particularly Black supporters of Trump’s, as we have seen lately — like to portray Democrats as the party of the KKK because at the time of the organization’s rise, the white Christian conservatives most vehemently opposed to Black civil rights called themselves Democrats.

But in reality, the KKK didn’t belong to any particular party, and the Democratic Party didn’t create it. People suggesting otherwise are most likely trying to score cheap political points.

As historian Elaine Frantz explained in a 2011 essay titled “Klan Skepticism and Denial in Reconstruction-Era Public Discourse,” the conspiracy to turn a blind eye to the KKK and its racist terrorism was a bipartisan project:

While Klansmen and their Democratic political allies deliberately spread doubt about Klan reports, they could not have succeeded as thoroughly as they did without the substantial, if intermittent, collaboration of their Republican opponents.

Hageman and some of her fellow Trump supporters apparently don’t want Republicans to be associated with racists, but pseudointellectual diatribes on American history are not the way to avoid that. Instead, I’d suggest not using phrases popularized by the KKK decades ago, such as “America First,” and refraining from celebrating former klan leaders, like Nathan Bedford Forrest.

And, of course, ceasing the GOP’s demonstrable and devastating political crusade against Black people would go a long way.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.

May. 13, 2026, 5:05 PM EDT

The Trump administration allegedly paid off FBI agents fired or punished for misconduct, including one who impeded a probe into a white nationalist group and another agent who appeared at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Those are the bombshell claims at the heart of a new probe Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin opened Tuesday into the Justice Department, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel.

Raskin “launched an investigation into a scheme inside the Department of Justice (DOJ) to direct millions of taxpayer dollars to FBI agents fired for serious misconduct, many of whom are aligned with Donald Trump,” according to a press release announcing the probe.

Raskin’s letter to Blanche demands details on the alleged payouts, which Raskin said were negotiated by Empower Oversight, a well-funded conservative activist group linked to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley that has focused on MAGA conspiracy theories under the guise of defending “whistleblowers.”

Raskin cites as an example an FBI agent who allegedly received a payout and reinstatement at the FBI after being removed for refusing to participate in a probe of the white supremacist group Patriot Front, which has been involved in acts of violence and intimidation toward Black people and immigrants. Raskin said this occurred despite revelations that the agent also “engaged in commercial sex overseas while on an official FBI assignment—unequivocal grounds for security clearance revocation and dismissal from the FBI.” The letter notes the agent was reinstated under Patel.

This claim seems particularly noteworthy in light of the Trump Justice Department’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Centerwhich investigates racist extremism and has even previously assisted the DOJ in such investigations. The SPLC is seemingly being targeted for purported fraud in connection with its work against white supremacist groups. Meanwhile, Raskin’s allegation is that the Justice Department rewarded someone for refusing to investigate white supremacy.

Raskin’s list of alleged payouts overseen by Blanche or Patel includes an agent who was reinstated and given more than $100,000 by the department after a court declined to reinstate him after he leaked details of a probe into the far-right group Project Veritas to the media. The representative also references an agent who was reinstated and given his security clearance back after facing punishment over documents, including photos and video, that showed him in a restricted area during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol back in 2021.

“There are many more examples of these indefensible and lawless payments,” Raskin’s letter to Blanche claims.

The letter demands a list of all FBI or DOJ employees who have received settlements or back pay after being fired or disciplined for alleged misconduct, and all documents pertaining to the negotiations.

Raskin lays out the picture of a lawless regime that prioritizes loyalty to the president — the first to be convicted of a felony — and subservience to his political agenda over seemingly all else. If the allegations are accurate, it’s a disturbing development, but arguably a predictable one.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.