The Unsuspecting Thing Conservative Historian David Barton Did With $1 Million Awarded to Him in Defamation Lawsuit

Conservative historian David Barton has given away the money he won as the result of a $1 million judgement issued earlier this year in a defamation lawsuit he brought against two Democratic Texas State Board of Education candidates who he accused of unfairly maligning him.

“All the money that we received as a result we gave away,” Barton told TheBlaze Monday, declining to share information about the recipient.

The WallBuilders founder filed a lawsuit after the candidates, Rebecca Bell-Metereau and Judy Jennings, claimed in a 2010 campaign video that Barton was tied to white supremacist groups. In that clip, the two reportedly said that Barton was “known for speaking at white supremacist rallies,” according to a 2012 New York Times report.

The two rallies mentioned in the video reportedly unfolded in 1991 and were with organizations linked to the Christian Identity movement, a racist group which believes “that whites of European descent can be traced back to the ‘Lost Tribes of Israel,’” among other racist and anti-Semitic beliefs, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Barton did not deny in court documents or in his interview with TheBlaze that he spoke to the groups, but said he was not aware of their beliefs at the time and that he never again attended any events linked to the movement, the Times reported...