Antifascist activists in Colorado identified a student at the University of Nevada-Reno (UNR)—who is also listed as an “officer” on Young Americans for Liberty’s website—as a member of Identity Evropa, a white nationalist organization now using the name “American Identity Movement” to organize its actions.
Identity Evropa is a white nationalist hate group that rebranded its efforts under a new name after its chat logs were obtained and published in March by independent media outlet Unicorn Riot. Within the leaked chat records, researchers identified 19-year-old UNR student Richard Golgart Jr. as the chat participant using the screen name “Mojave Paisan – NV.” To other Identity Evropa members, he introduced himself as “Richard from [Nevada]” upon joining the messaging server. Right Wing Watch was able to use additional information from the Identity Evropa chat logs obtained by Unicorn Riot and open source intelligence research to further verify Golgart as the person operating the “Mojave Paisan” account.
In the leaked logs, Golgart posted lists of countries that expelled Jews throughout history, shared images of flyers advertising Identity Evropa he said were placed at his university, and gloated that he had convinced a friend to apply for membership in the organization. He also expressed personal interests and unique details that matched with publicly available information about his life.
The identification of Golgart as a member of Identity Evropa adds to a growing list of people linked to the white nationalist organization who also have past or present ties to organizations funded through the Koch network of right-wing donors. Last month, a report by Sludge and Right Wing Watch highlighted two Koch-network activists who had been previously identified as working within Identity Evropa. Young Americans for Liberty is a libertarian youth organization in the United States that recruits and trains young people to work on state-level political campaigns, and as Sludge and Right Wing Watch reported, “The Charles Koch Foundation donated over $2.3 million to the Young Americans for Liberty Foundation from 2013 to 2017, representing a large portion of the group’s revenue.”
Golgart has a profile on Young Americans for Liberty’s website that states he became a “dues-paying member” of the organization four months ago and that he “became a new officer” two months ago. A spokesperson for Young Americans for Liberty that Right Wing Watch reached via email did not deny Golgart’s involvement with the organization and declined to address Golgart’s status at all, instead simply stating that Young Americans for Liberty “does not and will not tolerate racism, bigotry, or prejudice of any kind.”
“Our Chapters, activists, and staff are held to a high standard of moral and ethical conduct. As such, we will continue to lead with a positive message of freedom, liberty, and opportunity for all people. If we find that an individual has engaged in any activity or behavior antithetical to this mission, we will distance ourselves from said person and immediately terminate any affiliation they may attempt to have with us,” the Young Americans for Liberty spokesperson said.
In 2017, a different University of Nevada-Reno student, Peter Cvjetanovic, was photographed at the Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, spurring a petition to remove him from campus as an employee.
Right Wing Watch attempted to reach Golgart for comment via Facebook, but we did not receive a response before publication.
