When Rabbi Dan Fink saw that the lieutenant governor of his state had just spoken to a white nationalist group helmed by a Holocaust denier, he was shocked.
After all, he had just gotten a letter from Janice McGeachin, Idaho’s Republican lieutenant governor, asking him to join her in working on a task force to combat antisemitism.
McGeachin, who has secured former President Donald Trump’s endorsement in her run for governor, has depicted Republican Gov. Brad Little as insufficiently conservative. She garnered national headlines when she used executive powers vested in her office while Little was out of state for a day to ban mask mandates and to ask National Guard troops to head to Texas to protect the border.
McGeachin also has a history of associations with the far right, said Stephen Piggott, a program analyst at Western States Center, which tracks extremist activity.
“She’s posed for photos with paramilitary figures, and also white nationalists,” he said, naming Vincent James Foxx, a Holocaust denier. McGeachin has said she did not know who Foxx was when they posed together.