VIRGINIA – New reporting from Forward reveals that former Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears received campaign donations from Richard Iott, a former Ohio congressional candidate with a documented history of Nazi sympathizing and SS reenactments.

Iott, who described Nazi Germany as having “accomplished incredible things” from a military perspective, donated $900 to the Winsome PAC over ten months, ending in May. The PAC supports Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee for Virginia governor.

Iott, once a Tea Party-backed candidate, was removed from the National Republican Congressional Committee’s preferred list in 2010 after it became public that he spent decades participating in reenactments of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking—a Nazi military unit implicated in the Holocaust and multiple war crimes. He wore full Waffen SS uniforms during these events, which he said he joined intermittently over a span of 35 years.

In a 2010 interview with The Atlantic, Iott said of Nazi Germany: “Here was a relatively small country that, from a strictly military point of view, accomplished incredible things.” He also suggested it was unfair to judge Nazi actions without having “been there at the time they made those decisions.”

Jewish organizations and Republican leaders at the time strongly condemned Iott’s statements and reenactment involvement. The Republican Jewish Coalition called him “unfit for office.”

The Earle-Sears campaign has not responded to requests for comment regarding the donations. According to Forward, concerns are growing within GOP circles about the political fallout from the association.