Donald Trump appeared to have chosen a prominent white nationalist leader to serve as one of his pledged California delegates in the upcoming Republican national convention before his campaign backtracked on the inclusion, blaming a technical error.
The presumptive GOP nominee for president had included William Johnson, who chairs the white nationalist American Freedom Party, among his list of 169 supporters submitted to California’s Secretary of State, Mother Jones reports. However, Trump’s campaign on Tuesday said Johnson appearing on the list was an accident.
“Yesterday the Trump campaign submitted its list of California delegates to be certified by the Secretary of State of California,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement to TIME. “A database error led to the inclusion of a potential delegate that had been rejected and removed from the campaign’s list in February 2016.”
Hicks also added that Johnson will not be one of Trump’s delegates.
Johnson had told Mother Jones that he had applied to the Trump campaign to be a delegate and accepted the nod on Monday. “I just hope to show how I can be mainstream and have these views,” Johnson said. “I can be a white nationalist and be a strong supporter of Donald Trump and be a good example to everybody.”
Johnson has paid for pro-Trump robocalls in at least six primary and caucus states, calling the candidate “the spark we needed,” he told TIME last month.
Trump’s California delegate list also includes House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Harmeet Dhillon, vice chair of the California Republican Party, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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