This is a crosspost by Adam Holland.

Disgraced former Congressman Jim Traficant was recently freed from federal prison after serving seven years of hard time for corruption and tax evasion. He surprised many people who haven’t followed his case by claiming in subsequent interviews that he had been framed by the “Israel lobby”.

Now, according to a column he has published on the neo-fascist website American Free Press, Traficant is planning to travel to Germany to testify on behalf of John Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk has been indicted for war crimes committed while allegedly serving as a guard at the Sobibor concentration camp during World War II; the trial is set for later this month. Traficant also announced that he would be writing a regular column for American Free Press. (Read Traficant’s AFP column here. Read a Youngstown, Ohio Business Journal report on this here; and Editor and Publisher, here.)

Demjanjuk has been a cause célèbre on the far-right, getting support from Pat Buchanan, who compared him to Christ (read here), David Duke (read here) and David Irving (read here). Of that group, only Buchanan and Traficant had careers in the political mainstream. Buchanan worked for two Republican administrations (Nixon and Reagan), made one serious and two not so serious bids for the presidency, and has for a long time regularly regurgitated political opinions as a cable news talking head. Traficant served as a Democratic congressman from Ohio’s 17th CD for almost 9 terms, his last term having been abbreviated by a conviction and subsequent expulsion from Congress for corruption and tax evasion.

It looks like Traficant’s rehabilitation is not going well, his first post-prison employment being with Willis Carto’s American Free Press. Carto, for those lucky enough not to know of him, has been for the last 50 years perhaps the important organizer of neo-fascist groups and publisher of anti-Semitic literature in the United States, devoting a personal fortune to that cause. (Read here and here and here.) American Free Press and The Barnes Review are currently Carto’s most popular magazines/websites. With Carto’s dotage, the public face of AFP is frequently Michael Collins Piper. Piper has been courting Traficant for AFP, writing an entire book (read here) and a number of columns (read here) all devoted to defending Traficant and blaming “Zionists” for his downfall. In fact, Piper has become a virtual press agent for Traficant, both enabling and capitalizing on his extremism in the process. He has also provided Traficant with material support, raising funds for him (see below) and now giving him a job as a columnist.

By way of background, Piper is also the author of Final Judgement, a book which combined JFK assassination conspiracy theory with anti-Semitic Israel bashing, achieving levels of implausibility which even others on the conspiracy theory circuit mock. (Read here.) An advertisement for another of Piper’s books, Judas Goats: The Enemy Within — which is described as “the shocking story” of a Jewish fifth column “subverting the American nationalist movement” –appears on the AFP website. Also advertised: The High Priests of War, The New Jerusalem: Zionist Power in America , Dirty Secrets: Crime, Conspiracy & Cover-Up in the 20th Century, and The GOLEM: Israel’s Hell Bomb. Piper, who has been described as the U.S. far-right’s emissary to the Muslim world, has worked with, among others, former Malaysia PM Mahathir bin Mohamad and his chief aide Matthias Chang, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at whose Tehran Holocaust denial conference he gave a presentation. (Read here.)

Traficant’s opposition to Israel and his work on behalf of Demjanjuk have gained him support from better-known members of the anti-Semitic far-right as well. In August, Traficant, in a statement given to the media on his behalf by Piper, disavowed in strong terms support given him by neo-Nazi leader David Duke. Duke had published on his website, purportedly without permission, Piper’s pitch to raise so-called “canteen contributions” for Traficant to use while in prison. Duke also published on his websites several columns supporting Traficant, including a letter Traficant wrote on the Demjanjuk case. Traficant has refused to reveal to the media how much money he got from Duke and Piper’s fundraising efforts. The Warren, Ohio Tribune Chronicle report on this subject quoted Traficant and Piper’s disavowal of Duke, but completely neglected to mention that Piper, like Duke, is a far-right anti-Semite. (Read here.)

If that reporter had known who Piper was, he could have asked why Traficant would attempt to distance himself from one far-right bigot with the assistance of another. Piper’s explanation might have tried to distinguish Duke’s white nationalist opposition to “Jewish Suppremicism” from Piper’s “American nationalist” opposition to ZOG. After that, Piper might have explained why both he and Duke will be featured speakers at this weekend’s American Free Press conference in Washington, D.C. (Read about that at Duke’s website here; WARNING: HATE GROUP WEBSITE. The phone number Duke gives to register for that conference belongs to Piper’s office. Read here, bottom of page.)

So Piper, when talking to mainstream reporters comes on like he hates David Duke. But, when the media’s not looking, he invites Duke to speak at his “free speech” conferences. (By the way, if you want to see some info on earlier AFP/TBR conferences, I wrote about one of them here, about halfway down the page. Here’s a photo of Hutton Gibson appearing at one with Holocaust denier Frederick Töben.)

Here’s a video of Piper arguing that Jewish influence on the United States government is the most important issue today. (Start watching at about 1:40.) He says that U.S. politicians of both mainstream parties grovel before Jews on hands and knees and that only the AFP will report this.

Traficant’s connection to Piper’s makes a lot of sense when you listen to what Traficant has to say now that he’s out of stir. He claims that his support for John Demjanjuk and his opposition to the State of Israel led a conspiracy of “Zionists” to frame him: the old “I’m not corrupt, the evil Jews set me up” defense. It seems appropriate somehow that Traficant, his political career essentially over, has found an ideological home with this neo-fascist magazine in decline. Other disgraced former politicians have taken a similar route of blaming their decline on the Jews and have found a niche in which they can operate; Cynthia McKinney and George Galloway come to mind. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them sharing a stage at some “anti-Zionist” event, maybe hosted by Mahathir or Ahmadinejad.