Louie Gohmert gave $5,500 to Holocaust-denying preacher — then claimed it was an accident

On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) donated $5,500 to virulently anti-gay and anti-Semitic pastor Steve Anderson — and when caught, claimed the whole thing was an unfortunate mixup.

According to William Bredderman, "Team Gohmert claims it hired a Christian singer named Steve Amerson from Granada HIlls, California, but accidentally reported to the Federal Election Commission that the cash went to the Tempe, Arizona address of the Faithful Word Baptist Church, led by the infamous Pastor Steve Anderson."

Anderson, whose church is part of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement, is known for several abhorrent views, the report noted.

"Faithful Word Church calls for punishing homosexuality with the death penalty in the doctrinal statement published on its webpage," said the report. "But that demand seems mild compared to the seething rhetoric Anderson has unleashed against the LGBTQ community: in a 2014 video posted to his now-deplatformed YouTube account, he declared "'if you executed the homos, like God recommends, you wouldn't have all this AIDS running around.' In 2016, he applauded the the mass shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, asserting 'there's 50 less pedophiles in this world.'"

But Anderson's views go much further — he is also virulently anti-Semitic and denies the Holocaust happened.

"Anderson ... has demonstrated a particular animosity toward Jewish people, as evidenced in titles of the sermons listed on his IMDB page, which include 'The Jews Are Our Enemies,' 'The Jews Killed Jesus,' 'Unbelieving Jews Are Under God's Wrath,' 'Jews Worship a Female God Named 'Shekinah,'' and 'Jewish Synagogue = Synagogue of Satan,'" said the report. "He has also, as the Anti-Defamation League noted in a 2015 report, propagated false claims that millions of Jews were not gassed and cremated in Nazi concentration camps during World War II." He also published a video calling Dr. Martin Luther King, "Marxist Lucifer King," a "false prophet," a "sexual pervert," and a "Communist tool."

This comes shortly after Gohmert landed in the news for demanding to know if the U.S. Forest Service can change the Earth's orbit to fight climate change.