8
0
A prominent Ku Klux Klan leader says that the group has raised thousands of dollars for Hillary Clinton's campaign and that the Klan is officially endorsing the Democratic frontrunner for president—a claim the Clinton campaign vigorously denies.
Shortly after setting a giant cross on fire with dozens of other members of various white nationalist groups in Georgia on Saturday, Will Quigg, a Grand Dragon in a California branch of the KKK, sat down with Vocativ—which was there for a larger reporting trip about the modern state of the hate group—to talk about the 2016 election. According to Quigg, "For the KKK, Clinton is our choice."
"She is friends with the Klan," Quigg said. "A lot of people don't realize that. She's friends with Senator [Robert] Byrd. He's been an Exulted Cyclops in the Klan. He's been King Kleagle." (King Kleagle is another KKK title for the leader of an entire "realm," or state. Quigg is the King Kleagle for California.) Robert Byrd is a former U.S. senator from West Virginia. In the 1940s, Byrd organized and served as the leader of a Klan chapter in West Virginia. Byrd has long since disavowed the Klan and called his involvement "wrong." In 2010, Hillary Clinton called Senator Byrd  a "friend and mentor."