A pro-Donald Trump rally scheduled to take place at the Republican National Convention and co-hosted by longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone has cut ties with a white nationalist website that was previously sponsoring the event.

Media Matters reported this week that a “unity rally” featuring several Trump surrogates scheduled to be held in Cleveland on July 18 was being co-sponsored by Eternal Sentry, a self-described “altright” website that has repeatedly warned about “White Genocide” and posted other racist and anti-Semitic material. Paul Chambers, who produces the Eternal Sentry website and was also listed as the “Content Creation Team Director” for rally co-host Citizens for Trump, has also posted racist material arguing that whites need to “fight back” against African-Americans and “send them back to the mud-huts they so desperately and obviously desire.”

Citizens for Trump’s Tim Selaty told Cleveland.com he was not aware of Chambers’ “harmful” views and that his group had failed to do its “due diligence.” According to Selaty, Chambers “decided to drop his sponsorship and resign his volunteer position on our staff”:

A citizens group organizing a pro-Donald Trump rally in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention said Friday it has cut ties with a former sponsor that published social media posts attacking Jews and equating racial diversity with “White Genocide.”



Tim Selaty, the Texas-based organizer behind Citizens for Trump, said in a telephone interview he had not previously been aware of the views published on the social media pages of the group, Eternal Sentry.

[...]

Eternal Sentry's affiliation with the Citizens for Trump rally was publicized on Thursday by Media Matters, the progressive watchdog group run by David Brock, a prominent supporter of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.



Since at least May, Citizens for Trump had included Eternal Sentry as a sponsor on fliers for its rally. Eternal Sentry identifies itself as “alt-right,” a catch-all term for an edgy, far-right brand of conservatism, and on its website rails against multiculturalism, feminism, homosexuality, abortion and other cultural forces and political causes.

In May, an image including the phrase “Diversity is just their code word for White Genocide” was published on Eternal Sentry's Facebook page.



In a June 28 post from his personal Facebook account, which is now not publicly accessible but an image of which was captured by Media Matters, Chambers wrote that white people need “to take our country back for ourselves and send them [African-Americans] back to the mud-huts they so desperately and obviously desire.”

Although Eternal Sentry is no longer sponsoring the rally, the rally will still feature controversial speakers like  Stone and conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones. Stone was recently banned from CNN and MSNBC for his history of racist and sexist rhetoric targeting media and political figures, including calling one an “elitist c*nt” and another a “house negro,” as well as calling Hispanic and black commentators on CNN “quota hires.” Jones believes that the government was behind the 9/11 attacks and has called the Oklahoma City bombing, Aurora shooting, and Sandy Hook shooting “staged.” He has also suggested that the CIA funds Beyonce to cause mayhem in America.