INDIANAPOLIS – The former chairman of a white nationalist group employed by Rep. Braun’s campaign in 2017 is continuing to dispute the campaign’s claim that he was fired after they learned of his ties to white nationalists, saying to the Tri State Homepage that the campaign’s story is “completely false.”

Yesterday, the Tri State Homepage reported that Caleb Shumaker, a former employee for Rep. Braun’s campaign, is still working in Indiana Republican politics and under fire once again for white nationalist ties. Shumaker was also asked about his involvement with Rep. Braun’s campaign, where he denied being fired and said instead that he “resigned from that campaign to start a [political action committee]. This whole idea of he fired me is completely false.”

Shumaker’s latest account is the continuation of a long-running disagreement between Rep. Braun’s campaign and its former employee. The campaign claimed to have fired Shumaker last year after reports had surfaced that he was the former chairman of the National Youth Front, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a white nationalist group. However, Shumaker disagreed with the campaign at the time, claiming that he had left for family reasons.

The conflict over Shumaker’s departure from the campaign is not the only inconsistency between the two parties’ stories. Rep. Braun’s campaign also claimed not to know of Shumaker’s white nationalist affiliations when they hired him, but Shumaker told the AP that he had “discussed” his involvement with a white nationalist group when he was hired.

“Shumaker’s latest accusation that Rep. Braun’s campaign’s story is ‘completely false’ is another troubling flaw in Rep. Braun’s campaign’s story about his tenure there,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “The continuing, troubling inconsistencies are one more reminder that Rep. Braun’s campaign was too lazy to figure out that their employee was a white supremacist — or that it was too amoral to care.”

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