Convicted felon Virtual Murrell co-hosted a fundraiser Tuesday evening in Washington, D.C., for Michelle Nunn (D), who's running to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate.
Murrell spent a year in prison in the mid-1990s for bribing various San Francisco businesses to pay him $37,000. At the time, Murrell was an aide to an Oakland city councilman, thus violating the Hobbs Act by using his government position for his personal benefit.
Murrell drew attention because of another aspect of his past as well. In 1968, as distribution manager of the Black Panther Party, he said at a press conference that African-Americans should be exempt from joining the military and said that "if this racist, ethnocentric, imperialistic dog forces me to go [serve in the military], I have no other choice other than to sabotage your arsenal and to arm black people to use against this racist power structure to defend themselves."
Nunn spokesman Nathan Click told National Review that the Nunn campaign "was unaware of Mr. Murrell's criminal history and disagrees with his comments."
On Friday, Click said Nunn would be returning any donations she had from Murrell and any money he raised for Tuesday's event, according to The Associated Press.
Murrell is currently president of the Pegasus Group, a Washington, D.C., government relations firm.
A July 22 GOP runoff will determine whether Nunn faces Rep. Jack Kingston (Ga.) or businessman David Perdue in the general election.
HuffPost Pollster, which combines all publicly available polling data, shows Nunn almost tied with Kingston, but trailing Perdue:
This story has been updated to include reports that Nunn will return donations she received that were linked to Murrell.
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