Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Not only did Maryland Gov. Wes Moore lie about a Bronze Star, his Baltimore origins, a fictional football Hall of Fame introduction and his academic credentials, but a new report also suggests he fabricated a story about his great-grandfather fleeing the KKK. 

The report, published Wednesday by the Washington Free Beacon, centered on Moore’s repeated claim that his maternal great-grandfather, Rev. Josiah Johnson Thomas, fled South Carolina for Jamaica after narrowly escaping a lynching by the KKK in the 1920s. 

Moore has repeatedly referenced the story as a sign of strength, portraying Thomas as a preacher who, along with his son, Moore’s grandfather, was targeted for rebuking racism in South Carolina. 

However, the Free Beacon reported that the “straight out of Hollywood” story appears to be “false” as it is “flatly contradicted by historical records.” 

According to the report, records do confirm that Thomas preached during the 1920s and later moved to Jamaica, the Caribbean island where he was born. 

The same records from the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina indicate the move followed his appointment to replace a Jamaican pastor who died suddenly a week earlier. 

Moore has claimed that the move occurred quietly in the middle of the night, while the Free Beacon reported that the records show the appointment was public and made in an organized manner. 

Those same records make no reference to the KKK. In fact, the outlet added that data from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Mapping of the Second Ku Klux Klan shows the group did not maintain a chapter near Thomas’s church in Pineville during that period. 

Moore’s office responded dismissively to the report, with spokesperson Ammar Moussa accusing the outlet of being fixated on the governor, a potential 2028 presidential candidate. 

“The Free Beacon’s fixation on Governor Moore is mildly amusing. What’s more concerning is how casually they treat the reality of being Black in the South in the 1920s,” Moussa claimed. 

“Anyone questioning whether racial terror and intimidation were pervasive in that era should open a history book or, better yet, reach out to the KKK to ask what they were up to in South Carolina in the 1920s.” 

Moore’s communications director, David Turner, also declined to provide members of the governor’s extended family to corroborate the claims. 

“They have no desire to teach you the basics of American history,” Turner said.