Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi backed a group with white supremacist ties — while working for its billionaire funder

For more than three months, Republican Party of Texas Chair Matt Rinaldi has vigorously attacked critics of Defend Texas Liberty, and rebuffed calls to distance the state party from the powerful group over its As he did so, Rinaldi was also working as an attorney for one of the group’s two billionaire funders, Farris Wilks, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Since 2021, Wilks has given nearly $5 million to Defend Texas Liberty, which last year was the state party’s largest financial supporter. With Rinaldi’s help, the group has sought to purge the Texas GOP of more moderate voices by bankrolling far right causes and primary candidates. Government watchdog groups and some Republicans were heavily critical of the relationship between Rinaldi and Wilks, a prolific donor.

“In my two decades of involvement with the Texas GOP, I am not aware of anything even resembling the relationship between a state chair and a major donor that Matt Rinaldi has with Farris Wilks,” said Mark McCaig, a former member of the Texas GOP’s executive committee and Rinaldi critic who first noticed the SEC filings “It’s certainly reasonable to ask whether chairman Rinaldi is working towards the betterment of the party, as he pledged he would do in 2021, or if he is more interested in promoting the agenda of Farris Wilks at the expense of a unified and functional party.” Rinaldi’s work for Wilks began as early as September, according to the filings.

Since then, Rinaldi has identified himself as an attorney for Wilks on two other forms, including one that was , as nearly half of the Texas GOP’s executive committee called for the party to cut ties with Defend Texas Liberty and its The calls were prompted by The Texas Tribune’s Oct. 8 showing that, two days prior, Stickland the notorious white supremacist and avowed Adolf Hitler admirer Nick Fuentes for nearly seven hours at his office building in a remote, Tarrant County business park.

Rinadli was inside the one story building for about 45 minutes while Fuentes was inside, but has said he had no idea Fuentes was there and denied that he met with him. “We were just borrowing a conference room,” who was there for about 45 minutes. “I completely condemn (Fuentes) and everything he stands for.

I would never in a million years meet with that guy.” Since that meeting, Rinaldi has those who’ve been critical of Defend Texas Liberty or its funders, including Wilks. After House Speaker Dade Phelan and 60 other House Republicans called for lawmakers and candidates to redirect Defend Texas Liberty to pro Israel charities, Rinaldi spent weeks attacking the speaker and calling for him to resign.

Publicly, Rinaldi has also about Defend Texas Liberty as the Tribune extensively reported on ties between the group and other white supremacists and Fuentes acolytes, instead attacking the group’s detractors. And in December, as the Texas GOP’s executive committee debated a general ban on associating with antisemites, neo Nazis or Holocaust deniers in response to the Defend Texas Liberty scandal, Rinaldi pushed without publicly mentioning that he had worked for Wilks as recently as that November.

The proposed ban was Rinaldi and a spokesperson for the Texas GOP did not respond to requests for comment Friday morning. Wilks could not be reached for comment. Defend Texas Liberty is funded almost entirely by Wilks and another far right oil billionaire, Tim Dunn, who have together given the PAC roughly $15 million since 2021 to attack fellowRepublicans, including Phelan, as weak and insufficiently conservative.

Defend Texas Liberty is a key part of a of political groups, campaigns, nonprofits and media websites that have received more than $100 billion from West Texas oil billionaires as part of an ongoing project to pull Texas to the far right. Since Rinaldi was elected chair in 2021, the state party has received $392,000 from Defend Texas Liberty and the two billionaires.

Last year, the group was by far the biggest donor to the party, giving it $132,500. Rinaldi is a former state representative whose ultraconservative legislative career was heavily subsidized by Wilks and Dunn before he lost his Northwest Dallas County seat to Democrat Julie Johnson in 2018. In 2021, he was as the successor to , former Texas GOP chair Allen West and, as the party’s leader, Rinaldi has been a crucial ally of Defend Texas Liberty, helping and backing its candidates.

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Texas, said Rinaldi’s legal representation of Wilks was “shocking,” especially in light of the ongoing scandals involving Defend Texas Liberty that Rinaldi has been involved in. “We all know money equals power in Texas politics and billionaires like the Wilks use their wealth liberally to bend public policy to their liking all the time,” he said.

“But it's still pretty shocking.”.