CDR: White Supremacist raided

[George at Orwellian.Org]

   - Feds raid David Dukes house, cart off files -

 Feds Raid Home of Ex-Klansman
 By Cain Burdeau
 ASSOCIATED PRESS

MANDEVILLE, La.  Federal agents raided the home of former Ku 
Klux Klan leader David Duke on Thursday, carting off boxes of 
documents and a rifle during a search that lasted more than seven 
hours. FBI agent Sheila Thorne refused to disclose the nature 
of the investigation.

But Roy Armstrong, who identified himself as Duke's bodyguard 
and a caretaker at the house, said agents told him they were 
looking into whether Duke was illegally using money raised for 
his new white-rights organization for his personal use.

"It's a fishing expedition," Armstrong said. Duke's associates 
said that the 50-year-old former KKK leader and one-time state 
legislator was in Russia, promoting a new book, and that they 
had not been able to reach him.

His new organization is the National Organization For European 
American Rights, or NOFEAR. He launched it in January, declaring 
that whites in the United States face "massive discrimination" 
at the hands of minorities. Agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue 
Service and the Postal Inspection Service took part in the search 
of Duke's home in a suburb outside New Orleans. Agents carried 
out about a dozen boxes.

Armstrong showed reporters a copy of the search warrant, which 
sought a variety of financial and personal records, including 
gambling and travel records and direct mailings.

As for the rifle, Armstrong said agents told him they believed 
it was stolen. Armstrong said that he had never seen the gun 
before and that he did not know whether it belonged to Duke.

Duke appeared before a federal grand jury in New Orleans in 1999 
as news broke that Gov. Mike Foster had paid him more than 
$150,000 for a list of his supporters, supposedly for use during 
the 1995 governor's race. Duke had considered entering that race 
but ultimately stayed out of it. The grand jury reportedly was 
seeking information on whether Duke paid taxes on the money.

It was not known if the raid on Duke's home had anything to do 
with that matter.

Foster "hasn't spoken to the FBI," said the governor's 
spokeswoman, Marsanne Golsby. "He doesn't know anything about 
it." Foster, a Republican, paid a $20,000 fine to the state Board 
of Ethics in connection with the list of supporters.

Duke spent years on the political fringe, first as a Klan leader 
with neo-Nazi sympathies, then as founder of the National 
Association for the Advancement of White People, which decried 
integration.

He got elected to the state House in 1989 as a Republican and 
ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1990, pulling 44 percent 
of the vote against Democratic Sen. J. Bennett Johnston.

In the 1991 governor's race, he shocked the political 
establishment by making it into a runoff with former Gov. Edwin 
Edwards, who was trying for a comeback. Edwards won in a 
landslide.

Duke made a run for the presidency in Southern primaries in 1992 
but was soundly defeated. He finished third in the 1999 race 
to replace Rep. Bob Livingston in Congress.