Hal Turner

Harold Charles "Hal" Turner (born March 15, 1962) is an American far-right political commentator and convicted felon from North Bergen, New Jersey.

Turner's viewpoints typically encompass Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories, white supremacy, and have included calls for assassination of government officials.

Turner parlayed this fame into a role as the northern New Jersey coordinator for Patrick J. Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign.

Turner claims he established a friendship with Sean Hannity, on whose radio program he had once been a frequent presence.

Phil Boyce, Program Director of WABC, disputed the account, which described a friendship developing between Turner and Hannity in 1993, three years before Hannity was actually hired at WABC.

Turner became a talk radio host, joining fellow regular callers Frank from Queens and John from Staten Island to start the program The Right Perspective.

In the 2000 US congress election, Turner sought the Republican Party nomination for election to the United States Congress from New Jersey's 13th congressional district.

He received 18.6% of the vote, losing to Theresa de Leon.

Turner has identified himself as the "Chairman of the Republican Party of Hudson County, NJ Corp," a group which has no connection to the official Hudson County Republican Party recognized by the state and national party.

According to news reports, Hudson County Republican officials have stated that Turner's party is a "paper corporation with little or no membership".

Turner has sporadically hosted The Hal Turner Show, usually on shortwave radio station WBCQ, since 2002, as well as a corresponding blog, which has changed URLs frequently and has spread hoaxes and fake news.

Turner was born in Jersey City and raised in Union City and from age five in Ridgefield Park, where he attended Ridgefield Park High School.

Prior to working on radio, Turner worked as a driver and a salesman.

Identifying himself as "Hal from North Bergen", Turner became notable in American conservative circles as a frequent caller to and supporter of WABC radio talk show hosts Bob Grant and Sean Hannity.

Turner left the program in 2002, citing artistic differences.

In 2002, Turner became a solo host, purchasing a time slot on shortwave radio station WBCQ, over which he broadcast for approximately four years.

In 2002, Turner started broadcasting, but quit the show in July 2008 and resumed broadcasting it in April 2009 as the Turner Radio Network.

On WBCQ on March 22, 2004, he left the show "after harshly criticizing his supporters, listeners, and WBCQ."

The show lacked financial support and Turner had health problems, leading to the temporary closure of his website and show.

In response to an October 7, 2005, assault against a white student by a Black student at Kingston High School, Turner, working with the white nationalist group National Vanguard, organized a rally which he called a "rally against violence".

He characterized the rally as both "pro-white" and "against violence".

The victim's mother chose not to attend the rally.

In response, local residents, including political and religious leaders, organized a number of "Unity Rallies" with a tolerance theme.

When the rally occurred on November 19, 2005, Turner and the National Vanguard attracted approximately 50 demonstrators, compared to the 100 counter-demonstrators.

Turner called for the attacker to be charged with a hate crime, but the case resulted in the perpetrator being indicted as an adult with two felony counts: assault and attempted assault instead.

On April 12, 2006, Turner had a physical altercation with Jaime Vazquez, a former Jersey City deputy mayor and a member of the Jersey City Council, who was the Jersey City Commissioner of Veterans Affairs at the time.

The North Bergen Reporter quoted Turner as saying "(t)he illegal immigrants are breaking the law, and people like me should break the law as well by shooting them down."

In response, Vazquez picketed with a sign reading "Hal Turner — shoot me! Racists and bigots like you are cowards."

This was followed by a physical confrontation, during which Vazquez suffered a back injury and a fractured wrist.

Turner and Vazquez later filed criminal charges against each other.

On July 16, 2006 North Bergen Municipal Court Judge Joseph Romano found both men to be equally credible and thus neither criminally liable.

In 2008, while Hannity and Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party were debating Barack Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright, Shabazz asked Hannity if he should "be judged by (his) promotion and association with Hal Turner".

Hannity began to say that he didn't know Turner, but then said he was someone he had banned from his radio program ten years before.

Turner subsequently gave an account of their association on his website, in which he said of Hannity's response: "I was quite disappointed when Sean Hannity at first tried to say he didn't know me. In fact, Sean does know me and we were quite friendly a few years ago."

In August 2008 his website also closed.

Although he retained a blog, it was shut down by his host, Google's Blogger, for violations of terms of service.

In February 2009, Turner posted an article on his blog entitled: "FEDS GRANT EMINENT DOMAIN AS COLLATERAL TO CHINA FOR U.S. DEBTS!"

claiming that a secret agreement had been made to allow China to physically take U.S. land, in the event of a U.S. default.

The story created "hundreds of identical Internet replications" according to Snopes.

In August 2010, he was convicted for making threats against three federal judges with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, for which he spent two years in prison.