Jared Loughner, the man behind the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others on Saturday, is “possibly linked” to American Renaissance, a conservative racialist magazine founded by Yale grad Jared Taylor ’73, according to a Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by Fox News.

American Renaissance is a monthly magazine, published since 1991, dealing with issues of race and particularly what it sees as cases of discrimination against whites, from anti-white rap lyrics to “the affirmative action hoax.”

The “law enforcement memo” cited by Fox calls the group’s ideology “anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government) [and] anti-Semitic” and notes that Gifford was “the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in US government.” While admitting the group has “no direct connection” to Loughner, the memo speculates that video’s on Loughner’s YouTube and Myspace accounts suggest a connection.

Taylor refuted all these claims in a post on the AmRen website last night:

No one by the name of Loughner has ever been a subscriber to American Renaissance or has ever registered for an American Renaissance conference. We have no evidence that he has even visited the AR website.

American Renaissance condemns violence in the strongest possible terms, and nothing that has ever appeared in it pages could be interpreted as countenancing it.

AR is not anti-government, anti-Semitic, or anti-ZOG, as is clear from the 20 years of back issues that are posted on our website. The expression “ZOG” has never appeared in the pages of AR, and we have has always welcomed Jewish participation in our work. Many of the speakers at American Renaissance conferences have been Jewish.

[via 06520]