Marjorie Taylor Greene Employed White Nationalist Collaborator
A web and graphics designer who collaborated with white nationalist Nick Fuentes聽worked for pro-Donald Trump lawmaker Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., throughout 2022 and into 2023, a Hatewatch investigation found.
Lance W. Smith, 23, of Melissa, Texas, purchased or managed multiple web domains associated with Fuentes and his 鈥淎merica First鈥 movement, livestreams on Fuentes鈥 website Cozy.tv under the pseudonym 鈥淯X,鈥 and owns a gaming server for Fuentes fans. While associating himself with Fuentes鈥 wing of the white nationalist movement, Smith received $55,020 from Greene鈥檚 congressional campaign between June 24, 2022, and May 1, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records reviewed by Hatewatch. On one page of his online portfolio, Smith said he 鈥渙versaw production of the representative鈥檚 podcast and managed the creative direction of her campaign.鈥
Smith advertised multiple 鈥渄igital assets鈥 that he said he created 鈥渇or team Trump as he pursues election in 2024鈥 in his online portfolio. However, Hatewatch was unable to identify Smith on the Trump campaign鈥檚 payroll in a review of FEC data.
FEC records indicate that Smith began working for Greene鈥檚 congressional campaign as a consultant in summer 2022, several months after 聽white nationalists and other far-right extremists at Fuentes鈥 America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC). (Hatewatch was unable to determine if Smith attended the event.) On June 24, 2022, Greene for Congress paid Smith $3,750 for 鈥渄igital consulting and production鈥 services. From July 1, 2022, through Nov. 1 the campaign made biweekly disbursements of $1,875to Smith. On Nov. 15, 2022, the biweekly payout amount was increased to $2,710. On Feb. 15, someone changed the description of the disbursements to Smith to read 鈥渃ampaign staff payroll.鈥 Greene for Congress last paid Smith on May 1.
Hatewatch reached out to Smith through an email address listed on his portfolio but did not receive a response.
Multiple Republicans, including , criticized Greene for her decision to speak at AFPAC, where Fuentes lauded the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as 鈥渁wesome鈥 and approvingly compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. In response, 聽her Republican critics as 鈥淧harisees鈥 and stated her intent was to 鈥渟peak to a lost generation of young people who are desperate for love and leadership.鈥
That same year, Greene brought on Milo Yiannopoulos, a , as an unpaid congressional intern. A Daily Beast report from May indicates that Yiannopoulos 聽to purchase a domain in support of antisemitic rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West). The website was associated with Ye鈥檚 presidential campaign, which both Yiannopoulos and Fuentes have helped advise.
Since late 2022, Greene has since sought to distance herself from Fuentes鈥 鈥淎merica First鈥 movement, calling the pro-Hitler livestreamer 鈥渋mmature.鈥 Nevertheless, Hatewatch reported as recently as December 2022聽that she addressed a New York Young Republican Club event featuring an array of radical-right figures, such as Jack Posobiec . White nationalists also attended the event, including Peter听补苍诲 Lydia Brimelow聽of VDARE.
Hatewatch reached out to Rep. Greene鈥檚 office over email via a member of her communications staff but did not receive a response. Likewise, Hatewatch contacted the Trump campaign through an email listed on their website. No one responded.
Greene campaign staffer鈥檚 ties to Fuentes
Smith鈥檚 association with Fuentes appears to date back to at least 2020. On the evening of Sept. 23, 2020, Smith registered the domain genzgop.com with the extremist-friendly web services company Epik, according to hacked company data聽that activists leaked to the public in September 2021. By , the genzgop.com URL was redirecting to NicholasJFuentes.com, according to an archived version of genzgop.com captured by the Internet Archive鈥檚 Wayback Machine, which captures and saves archives of various websites. Another archive of the genzgop.com site , shows that someone changed the site to redirect to AmericaFirst.live, a website that Fuentes used to stream his online show by the same name.
Today, genzgop.com redirects to genzgop.org, the website of the 501漏4 nonprofit Gen Z Grow Our Platform (Gen Z GOP), whose 聽the Republican Party to focus on issues important to young, right-wing voters.
In a statement sent to Hatewatch over email, Gen Z GOP said that the group 鈥渇ully and unequivocally disavows鈥 Fuentes and his movement.
鈥淚n 2020, Fuentes and his cronies attacked our organization, and the domain鈥檚 ownership was likely purchased in an attempt to subvert our efforts to create a more inclusive Republican Party,鈥 the group added.
The street address Smith used to register the genzgop.com website with Epik matches a mailing address that multiple data brokers attributed to him. The email Smith used to register the site is tied to an Instagram account under his own name, where Smith describes himself as a 鈥渄esigner鈥 and 鈥淢AGA.鈥
Smith also appears to have shared pro-Fuentes content under the pseudonym 鈥淯X鈥 on multiple social media websites, including during his tenure with the Greene campaign. The term 鈥淯X鈥 is short for 鈥渦ser experience,鈥 a term used in web design to refer to how a user interacts with a digital product.
鈥淯X鈥 began livestreaming on Fuentes鈥檚 Cozy.tv platform in late 2021 or early 2022.
鈥淯X鈥 is also listed as an owner for a chat related to an 鈥淎merica First鈥-affiliated group in Minecraft, an online game where users can design their own worlds out of 3D objects referred to as 鈥渂locks.鈥 He has also described himself as one of the managers of the server, as well as shared links, videos and other promotional material associated with it. Minecraft allows users to launch their own self-hosted servers to enable multiplayer gameplay.
鈥淯X鈥 said on Gab, a social media site popular with extremists, that a similar game called Roblox banned him for declaring 鈥淕ays are gross鈥 and 鈥淕ays go to hell鈥 within the game. Almost half (45%) of Roblox users are .
Hatewatch linked Smith to the 鈥淯X鈥 persona after far-right livestreamer and former Fuentes collaborator Ethan Ralph identified Smith as 鈥淯X鈥 and published his full name and phone number, along with information about three other close Fuentes allies, in a July 16 series of posts on Telegram. Ralph shared the personal information in the run-up to an event that Fuentes hosted in West Palm Beach, Florida.
In his Telegram posts, Ralph did not discuss Smith鈥檚 involvement with mainstream Republican politics.
Hatewatch confirmed this identification through a review of usernames associated with 鈥淯X鈥檚鈥 Twitter account. Each account is assigned a unique numerical code that allows Twitter to identify an account even if a user changes to their handle. Using an archive of historical Twitter data from programmer Travis Brown, Hatewatch was able to determine that @uxreturns, the Twitter handle used by 鈥淯X,鈥 first launched their account in 2019 using the handle @lance_ws and the display name 鈥淟ance Smith.鈥 Hatewatch confirmed these findings by searching for mentions of @lance_ws on the platform, which brought up tweets from @uxreturns, indicating that both handles shared a Twitter ID.
@uxreturns has not publicly commented on Ralph鈥檚 identification of him as Smith. However, in a tweet shared at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time on July 16, @uxreturns shared a screenshot of Ralph mocking the small number of cars at Fuentes鈥 event, commenting, 鈥渂ro has never heard of uber.鈥
鈥楢 very immature young man鈥
Greene has a longstanding, but at times tense, relationship with Fuentes. In 2022, Greene spoke at Fuentes鈥檚 AFPAC, a gathering of white nationalists and other far-right extremists that Fuentes has held since early 2020 to coincide with the more mainstream Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos, who worked as an unpaid congressional intern in Greene鈥檚 office during 2022, joined Ye鈥檚 (formerly Kanye West鈥檚) presidential campaign in late 2022. Greene said in a December 2022 episode of her podcast, 鈥淢TG Live,鈥 that 鈥渕ost people in this country have no clue who Nick Fuentes is.鈥
鈥淚f they heard the statements that he makes, they would want nothing to do with him. He sounds like a very immature young man saying hateful things about people,鈥 Greene continued.
On his portfolio website, Fuentes collaborator Smith says he created the artwork for both the 鈥淢TG Live鈥 show and its production company Front Porch Politics.
Fuentes, who marched at the deadly 2017 鈥淯nite the Right鈥 rally聽in Charlottesville, Virginia and was present on the Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, has said he envisions his movement as becoming 鈥渢he right-wing flank of the Republican Party.鈥 After a series of prominent defections in mid-2022, Fuentes appears to have abandoned his annual AFPAC event, which did not take place in 2023. Instead, he has hosted smaller gatherings, branded as 鈥渞allies,鈥 where he is the primary speaker.
During Fuentes鈥檚 July 16 rally in West Palm Beach, he stated that he saw himself as involved in a 鈥渉oly war鈥 and described killing 鈥渆nemies of Christ.鈥
鈥淏ecause we鈥檙e willing to die in this holy war, we will make them die in the holy war. And they will go down. We have God on our side. And they will go down with their Satanic master. They have no future. The enemies of Christ have no future in this world,鈥 Fuentes said.
On July 19, Fuentes wrote in a post on Telegram that Rumble, a video streaming platform popular with the far right, removed multiple videos from his West Palm Beach rally and said that Rumble had restricted his channel from posting new videos for two weeks.
Hatewatch reached out to Fuentes over email but did not receive a response.
Photo illustration by 人兽性交 with source images from Getty
