Brexit suspect had interest in material from U.S. white nationalists

A U.S.-based group that has surfaced in the aftermath of the death of a British lawmaker has a high profile among white nationalists.

The National Alliance, profiled by The Kansas City Star last year in a series on domestic terrorism, is probably best known for a book that founder William Pierce wrote decades ago.

“The Turner Diaries” is about a race war in which white insurgents kill blacks and Jews and bomb a federal building. Federal prosecutors said Timothy McVeigh used the book as a blueprint for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

The National Alliance, based in West Virginia, has been through turmoil since Pierce died in 2002.

Current chairman Will Williams, a U.S. Army Green Beret and Vietnam veteran, is a longtime white nationalist and friend of F. Glenn Miller Jr., the neo-Nazi who killed three people in 2014 outside two Jewish centers in Overland Park.

Williams told The Star in a series of interviews last year that he joined the National Alliance in 1991 but quit in 2002 shortly before Pierce died because he didn’t like the direction it was going. But in 2014, Williams returned and took over as chairman.

He said he didn’t see himself as a racist but “a race thinker” and “a racial loyalist.”

Thomas Mair, who was arrested after the killing of Parliament member Jo Cox, has had ties to neo-Nazi groups, news outlets reported Friday.

The Guardian, a British newspaper, reported Friday that sources said police found samples of Nazi regalia and far-right literature when they searched the home of Mair.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said Mair, 52, was a longtime supporter of the National Alliance and had purchased books and other literature from the organization between 1999 and 2003.

The law center said it obtained records showing Mair, who lives in Birstall, had been a National Alliance supporter for decades.

The law center said invoices showed Mair had sent about $620 to the organization for items purchased through its printing imprint, National Vanguard books. Among the purchases was a manual that included instructions on how to build a pistol.

Mair also bought publications that discussed the “Chemistry of Powder & Explosives,” “Incendiaries” and a work called “Improvised Munitions Handbook,” the law center said.

In a statement, the National Alliance described the group as “an educational organization working for the long-term interests of white people worldwide.”

It denied any involvement with Mair and said the records of his alleged purchases were obtained illegally.

“The National Alliance had and has no connection with Thomas Mair any more than with any other book customer; we did not work with him, were not familiar with him, and did not remember his name even after the release of the illegally-obtained book receipts,” the statement said.

“The National Alliance is a strictly legal organization and has always warned its members against illegal activity.”

Through the years, the statement said, National Vanguard Books has sold hundreds of thousands of books to hundreds of thousands of customers.

This story was originally published June 17, 2016 at 3:09 PM with the headline "Brexit suspect had interest in material from U.S. white nationalists."