Wells Fargo & Co. said an employee at one of its Washington County, Oregon, locations is no longer with the company after allegations he promoted racist groups and participated in last summer’s violent white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Andrew Alexander Murphy Harkins, 33, worked as a home mortgage consultant at the bank’s Washington Square Road branch in Tigard and had been at the company since 2012.
Tom Unger, a Wells Fargo spokesman, said the company conducted a review of the allegations against Harkins published last week by the Pacific Northwest Antifascist Workers Collective, a group comprised of unnamed antifa activists from Oregon and Washington.
As of Friday, Harkins no longer worked for the company, though Unger said he could not provide specifics about why his employment ended.
“Wells Fargo has a proud tradition of diversity and inclusion,” the spokesman said in a statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive. “We are committed to treating all of our customers, team members and the diverse communities we serve with the utmost dignity and respect.”
Harkins, who lives in Southwest Portland, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Harkins was pictured marching June 4 with the members of Identity Evropa, considered a white supremacist group by the Anti-Defamation League, during a pro-Donald Trump rally in downtown Portland. The event took place fewer than 10 days after police say Jeremy Christian killed two men aboard a MAX train in a racially motivated attack.
Harkins was also photographed that day having beers with far-right provocateurs James Allsup and Tim Gionet, who goes by the name “Baked Alaska.” Both men, who have large social media followings, have been suspended by Twitter for violating the company’s terms of service.
Later that summer, according to the antifa report, Harkins traveled to Charlottesville to participate in the “Unite The Right” rally that drew white supremacists and neo-Nazis from throughout the country.
Violent clashes between organizers and counter-protesters erupted during the event, which ended with one woman killed.
Photos from Charlottesville appear to show Harkins clutching a Tiki torch and marching with hundreds of other men the night of Aug. 11. He is pictured gathered near a members of the Traditionalist Workers Party, a neo-Nazi group, the next day.
In multiple photographs from Charlottesville, Harkins can be seen wearing a baseball cap with the insignia of the group True Cascadia.
According to its website, members of True Cascadia seek to “promote a White ethnic consciousness in the Pacific Northwest and prevent, as well as reverse, the increasingly discriminatory policies enacted in opposition to White in our own homelands.”
Listed among True Cascadia’s primary political aims, according to its website: “Stop the continuation of non-White immigration into our communities.”
A number of men who participated in the Charlottesville demonstrations have since been fired from their jobs or expelled from colleges and universities.
Antifa groups, of which there are now dozens in the U.S., routinely publicize personal information of those they deem threats to people in their communities, a practice called doxing.
They also watch individuals, on and offline, and organize demonstrations against people they believe have ties to hate groups or publicly espouse bigoted views.
Late last year, a report published by local antifa activists accused Bethany Sherman, a successful marijuana entrepreneur from Eugene, of having neo-Nazi sympathies.
While Sherman disavowed having neo-Nazi connections, her purported ties to prominent white nationalists and subsequent declarations of white pride prompted her to shutter OG Analytical, her marijuana testing lab.
