<\/p>\n
A rookie congressional candidate in a nine-way Texas primary has received the imprimatur of wealthy hard-right donors including tech billionaire Peter Thiel<\/a>, Claremont Institute board chair Thomas Klingenstein and Charles Haywood, who once expressed a desire to be a \u201cwarlord\u201d, according to new Federal Election Commission filings showing early donations to his campaign.<\/p>\n In a recent candidate forum, Jace Yarbrough unapologetically staked out a series of extremist positions, saying that critics may call his approach to politics \u201cbigoted and backward and oppressive and Nazi-ish\u201d, but that he is \u201cpast trying to placate that in any way, shape or form\u201d.<\/p>\n Following the flood of donations in December, Yarbrough was endorsed by Donald Trump on Truth Social<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yarbrough\u2019s remaining donors include others with ties to the Claremont Institute and the secretive far-right Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), including Nate Fischer, a venture capitalist with documented links to JD Vance<\/a>; and Andrew Beck, Claremont\u2019s vice-president for communications and an admitted SACR member.<\/p>\n Current and former employees of Beck-founded agency Beck & Stone are also among the donors.<\/p>\n John Bellamy Foster, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, said:\u201cJace Yarbrough is among the most militant figures in the Maga political movement in the United States, and a major recipient of Maga-billionaire donations in his run for a congressional seat in North Texas<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Foster added: \u201cIf it can be said that there is a neofascist political movement<\/a> in the United States, Yarbrough is certainly one of its chief would-be \u2018lawgivers\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The Guardian contacted Yarbrough and all donors named in this reporting. Only Klingenstein replied, writing in an email: \u201cI have no particular objections to or comments on the subjects you propose to cover.\u201d<\/p>\n Yarbrough is a lawyer, a former US air force service member and a current reservist who has come to prominence on the right via a series of legal battles on his own account, and as a lawyer in the boutique Dallas metro litigation firm SL Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n On 3 October 2023, Yarbrough filed suit against the US air force, the US space force, former secretary of defense Lloyd Austin and current chief of space operations B Chance Saltzman over a letter of admonishment he received following a speech he gave at a colleague\u2019s retirement. In the speech, Yarbrough criticized then-current trainings aimed at limiting extremism in Department of Defense services as \u201ca thinly veiled flex of political power\u201d, and warned against \u201ccancel culture\u201d in the services.<\/p>\n That case is ongoing.<\/p>\n Yarbrough\u2019s two-man firm also acted on behalf of Elon Musk\u2019s X<\/a> against Media Matters for America<\/a>, and for X and alt-tech video platform Rumble against their former advertisers<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2024, Yarbrough failed in a bid for a Texas state senate seat.<\/p>\n On 11 December 2025, he filed for candidacy for Texas\u2019s 32nd district, a formerly safe blue seat which redistricting turned into a likely Republican win<\/a>, and which has now attracted a wide primary field.<\/p>\n At a 10 February candidate forum hosted by the Dallas Express \u2013 a conservative news website<\/a> \u2013 Yarbrough articulated a series of extremist positions.<\/p>\n On immigrants, he said: \u201cWe no longer share common values with people that we see in the grocery store or at our public schools, people that are at the local mall. Because we\u2019re not from the same place, we don\u2019t have the same formation.\u201d<\/p>\n He also called for repealing the Hart-Celler Act, the 1965 law that ended race-based immigration quotas \u2013 a longtime white nationalist<\/a> policy demand that has increasingly been voiced in organs of the Maga movement<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Islam, Yarbrough said: \u201cOur first introduction, for most of us, was 9\/11. And then what happens? Then we see hordes of Islamic immigrants coming and attempting to set up Sharia law here in the United States, which is fundamentally incompatible with American citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n In general, Yarbrough told the audience: \u201cThe kind of good government that I want to offer, that you and I agree with, they call it bigoted and backward and oppressive and Nazi-ish.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI am past trying to placate that in any way, shape or form.\u201d<\/p>\n The donations to Yarbrough listed by the FEC in a filing from the campaign all came in December.<\/p>\n Thiel, the tech billionaire and Palantir founder, gave $7,000 to Yarbrough\u2019s campaign on 24 December \u2013 the maximum allowable contribution split between the primary and general elections.<\/p>\n Thiel was an early mentor to<\/a> JD Vance; a million-dollar<\/a> Trump donor and transition team<\/a> member in 2016; and the rainmaker for a stable of \u201cnew right\u201d candidates in 2022, spending some $30m on his favored candidates, including Vance in his successful Ohio senate run.<\/p>\n FEC records reveal that $1.6m in donations since Trump\u2019s inauguration includes $852,200 to Grow the Majority Pac<\/a>, a joint fundraising committee for House Republicans, and a cumulative $310,100 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.<\/p>\n Haywood, the former soap magnate whom the Guardian first identified<\/a> as a founding member and sponsor of SACR, the secret fraternal group, contributed $1,000 to Yarbrough\u2019s campaign on 29 December, according to FEC records.<\/p>\n As the Guardian previously reported<\/a>, Haywood speculated about serving as a \u201cwarlord\u201d at the head of an \u201carmed patronage network\u201d in \u201cmore-or-less open warfare with the federal government\u201d after a collapse of the US. He has also expressed a desire to recruit \u201cshooters\u201d to help defend his Indiana compound.<\/p>\n Haywood\u2019s X social media posts in the last month include repeated open calls for an authoritarian overthrow of US democracy, including claims that \u201cAmerica cannot survive<\/a> without a hard extra-legal reset \u2026 ie, an authoritarian reset\u201d; \u201cColonialism was the best thing<\/a> to ever happen to India\u201d; \u201cFrancisco Franco was both necessary<\/a> and awesome\u201d and \u201cSuch a man will, it appears, be necessary for the restoration of America\u201d; and \u201cthe key question<\/a> is whether all Trump\u2019s people know that they cannot hand power back to the Left, ever\u201d.<\/p>\n Klingenstein, the fund manager who chairs the Claremont Institute\u2019s board and is its largest known funder<\/a>, providing about a third of its income, according to the most recent available filings, gave $7,000 to Yarbrough\u2019s campaign on 30 December \u2013 again, the maximum split between primary and general.<\/p>\n As the Guardian previously reported<\/a>, Klingenstein previously funded and appeared in videos exhorting conservatives to join a \u201ccold civil war\u201d against \u201cwoke communists\u201d.<\/p>\n These apocalyptic forecasts coincided with his emergence as a Republican megadonor<\/a> over the last two electoral cycles. Klingenstein sank more than $10m into a range of Republican Pacs and political candidates in the 2024 cycle, and has also provided ad hoc funding<\/a> to initiatives like the far-right media outlet Action Idaho.<\/p>\n Yarbrough echoed Klingenstein\u2019s \u201ccold civil war\u201d vocabulary in a 14 January profile<\/a> in the Dallas Express.<\/p>\n Klingenstein has fashioned his personal website as a journal of rightwing opinion: recent articles include The University Is the Engine of the Regime<\/a>, written by Scott Yenor, a SACR founder<\/a> who was recently hired<\/a> by the Heritage Foundation; an article<\/a> praising Chile\u2019s new far-right president, who is an admirer of Pinochet and the son of a member of the Nazi party<\/a>; and Klingenstein\u2019s endorsement<\/a> of the view that \u201cantifa\u201d is the \u201cparamilitary vanguard of the cold civil war\u201d.<\/p>\n Klingenstein has continued to be a generous funder of rightwing causes beyond the realm of electoral politics.<\/p>\n A November filing shows that in 2024, he donated more than $4.3m to Claremont; more than $200,000 to the Edmund Burke Foundation, host of National Conservatism conferences that have been held in the US, UK, Italy and Brussels since 2019; more than $500,000 to RealClearFoundation, which in turn sponsors other rightwing media initiatives; and $250,000 to the Madison Media Fund<\/a>, whose biopic of election-denying Trump attorney and Claremont fellow John Eastman premiered at Mar-a-Lago on 6 January.<\/p>\n A separate $7,000 donation to Yarbrough came from Robin D Weaver, Klingenstein\u2019s wife<\/a>. Klingenstein\u2019s first wife, Nancy Perlman, died in 2018.<\/p>\n Beck and co-founder Austin Stone also made donations, each listing their affiliation with the agency.<\/p>\n Beck, who is also Claremont\u2019s vice-president for communications, gave $3,500 on 13 December, listing his employer as \u201cBeck & Stone\u201d and his occupation as \u201cconsultant\u201d.<\/p>\n Beck, who designed SACR\u2019s logo and website, admitted his membership<\/a> in a 2024 post on X.<\/p>\n In the last month on X, Beck has spent some time<\/a> lending his support to Jeremy Carl, Beck\u2019s former Claremont colleague and the author of a book alleging systemic discrimination against white people in the US.<\/p>\n Carl\u2019s nomination for a senior state department role appeared to have stalled last week<\/a>, with Republican senators concerned about his previous comments on Israel, and Democratic senator Chris Murphy describing him<\/a> as a \u201clegit white nationalist\u201d.<\/p>\n Another post, apparently posted during Bad Bunny\u2019s Super Bowl performance, reads<\/a>: \u201cA fundamental part of being an American is communicating in the language of America. And that language is English.\u201d Another announces<\/a>: \u201cThe end of the transgender experiment.\u201d Another boasts<\/a> about a $500-a-head Yarbrough fundraiser in Dallas.<\/p>\n The Guardian previously reported<\/a> that despite Beck\u2019s subsidiary political consultancy Knight Takes Rook\u2019s (KTR) aggressive social media promotion of Yarbrough\u2019s earlier statehouse campaign, neither Beck & Stone nor KTR appeared in his campaign disbursement filings.<\/p>\n When asked in 2024 about the work, Beck & Stone\u2019s then-communications director, Andrew Cuff, confirmed the relationship, calling \u201csubcontracting through third-party entities\u201d a \u201cstandard and fully compliant practice\u201d.<\/p>\n Cuff himself donated $1,041.02 to Yarbrough\u2019s campaign on 30 December. In his FEC filing, Cuff listed his employer as \u201cFederal Government\u201d and his occupation as \u201cAppointee\u201d.<\/p>\n Cuff is currently chief speechwriter in the Department of Education, according to the department\u2019s website. His office of government ethics filing in 2025, which has not been previously reported on, confirms that Beck & Stone worked for Yarbrough among dozens of other clients.<\/p>\n Beck & Stone co-founder Austin Stone gave the maximum $7,000 on 13 December, split between primary and general elections.<\/p>\n Another donor, Nate Fischer, is along with Haywood and Beck closely linked to SACR, as previously detailed in the Guardian.<\/p>\n Fischer gave $1,000 on 13 December, listing his employer as \u201cNF Macro\u201d and his occupation as \u201cinvestor\u201d. His wife, Meghan Fischer, listed as a homemaker, also donated $1,000 on the same day.<\/p>\n Fischer was the founding president<\/a> of SACR\u2019s Dallas chapter and runs New Founding, a venture capital firm explicitly designed to fund rightwing enterprises. The Guardian has reported<\/a> on Fischer\u2019s friendly relationship with JD Vance, documented in a photograph showing the now-vice president clasping Fischer\u2019s shoulders at a 2023 gathering in Dallas.<\/p>\n SACR is a men-only, invitation-only fraternal network that the Guardian first exposed in 2023<\/a>. Internal documents obtained by the Guardian revealed the group\u2019s aim to recruit men who \u201cunderstand the nature of authority and its legitimate forceful exercise\u201d and to form \u201cthe backbone of a renewed American regime\u201d.<\/p>\n A 2024 Middlebury Institute report<\/a> pointed to \u201cundercurrents of neo-fascist accelerationism\u201d in SACR\u2019s philosophy. The Claremont Institute, where both Beck<\/a> and Fischer have held fellowships<\/a>, donated $26,248 to SACR<\/a> in 2020.<\/p>\n Haywood, the SACR founding member, has habitually described the January 6 riot as an \u201celection justice protest\u201d.<\/p>\n For his part, at the 10 February candidate forum, Yarbrough characterized January 6 as a \u201cpeaceful protest\u201d and lamented: \u201cPeople\u2019s lives were destroyed, held in solitary confinement for months, years. And who\u2019s gone to prison for it? Nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Texas #congressional #candidate #extremist #views #backed #hardright #donors #politics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A rookie congressional candida… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Jace Yarbrough<\/strong><\/h2>\n
High-profile donors<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Beck & Stone connections<\/strong><\/h2>\n