- Chester Doles is running as a Republican for a spot on the Lumpkin County Board of Commissioners.
- He spent decades involved with the Ku Klux Klan, including a spell as Maryland's Grand Klaliff.
- Doles was jailed in 1993 after being convicted of beating a Black man in Maryland.
Chester Doles, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi National Alliance, is running for office as a Republican in Georgia, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Doles, who spent decades in the KKK, including as Maryland's Grand Klaliff, filed paperwork earlier this year to run for a spot on the Lumpkin County Board of Commissioners in 2022, the paper reported.
The 61-year-old running for a local county commission office in a deeply conservative district has a chequered past. Doles has been to prison twice, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He served four years in prison in 1993 after being convicted on federal charges related to the beating of a Black man in Maryland. In 2003, he was arrested on federal firearms charges and spent four more years in prison.
In December 2016, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Doles was arrested on assault charges.
The paper said that Doles also had been linked to the Hammerskins — a white-supremacist "skinhead" group.
He marched with the group in the 2017 Unite the Right rally, the deadly white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, according to The Washington Post.
In 2019, Doles described himself as a "fourth-generation Klansman." He told 11 Alive that he now denounces racism and blames his past actions on "youthful indiscretions."
He said that his politics is now "in line with all Republicans" and added that he's a supporter of Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution describes Doles as an "ardent supporter" of former President Donald Trump.
In December 2020, he was pictured in a selfie with Sen. Kelly Loeffler. She said she didn't know who he was.
—Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) December 13, 2020
Insider reached out to Doles for comment but did not immediately receive a response.