Written by Six years ago I took a historic journey which would change my life forever.
With your help, it has the potential to change the world.
“Charlottesville” is a name that will live in infamy, whatever the outcome of history. If we, and the truth, prevail, it will become synonymous with deceit, public corruption, and anti-White terrorism. If history maintains its present trajectory, and the news is dutifully recorded by the scribes as fact, it will become synonymous with White supremacist terrorism, and the brave lawyers and revolutionaries who put an end to colonialism.
You have a say in that outcome, and what you do today may well be determinative of what happens generations from now.
Whether you give up, enjoy the decline, blow your brains out today, or indulge yourself in delusions about glorious combat and quick victory, the result will be the same. The truth will lose all relevance. The forces of darkness will prevail. The White race will cease to exist, other than as some fictional historical narrative like that which maligns Hitler’s Germany. All that this race created, will in due course crumble. The people who stole it from us, will prove incapable of its maintenance and advancement. The chaos that enveloped the country throughout the year 2020 will come to resemble our brightest moment, as the animalistic impulses that drive the Left to chaos and anarchy are left entirely unopposed and unrestrained.
If you, by contrast, commit today to doing whatever is necessary, including the tedious, inglorious, and time consuming things, that trajectory may yet be reversed. History will be recorded from the blogs and podcasts of the last six years, instead of from the newspapers. Future generations will be warned about who seeks their destruction, the means by which they pursue that monstrous purpose, and the deep, unceasing, eternal ethnic animus that drives this malice.
I seek nothing more and nothing less than to secure the existence of our people, and a future for White children. For that reason, I have chosen the latter course. I hope that you will join me in this. If you do, I promise you nothing but struggle, and perhaps the inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done what is right.
Today I will present to you something I composed in the course of that struggle. Many of you have heard or read portions of this, but my opportunity to read it was cut short by time constraints.
The composition I speak of is my closing argument in the Sines v. Kessler civil trial, which took place at the end of 2021. I was a prisoner at this time, representing myself pro se, and had to compose this document in the courtroom while the trial was ongoing. The Plaintiffs, numerous though they were, had a single unified front in the trial. The defendants, not so much. And so, when the Plaintiffs presented their closing argument, and the Defendants theirs, “equal time” was given to both sides.
But this was anything but equal. Each defense team had a brief moment to state their case separately, while the Plaintiffs went on for the better part of a day, weaving together their complex and preposterous lie.
I knew my presentation would be a homerun. For this reason, I wanted it to be the last thing the jury heard before deliberation. I negotiated with my codefendants, and was left with less than 15 minutes to respond to my opponents’ day long presentation. Within this time I was expected to summarize the results of a month long trial.
That might sound ridiculous to you, and surely it is, but compared to all that had preceded this moment, it was mild in its injustice..
There is nothing that will more violently shake your faith in media, or in the justice system, than to find yourself targeted thereby. I always assumed there were careless errors, and even a degree of intentional spin in our press coverage. I figured it was likely that innocent people were inadvertently convicted of crimes they did not commit from time to time, and that most but perhaps not all of those people were likely in that position due to other bad behavior. I never thought much about civil court, because I never had any substantial money to take.
“Who sues poor people?” was once a mere rhetorical question in my mind.
But now, I have my answer.
Monsters sue poor people, and they enjoy it.
I also came to discover there is nothing careless about our press coverage. It is, by some contrast, meticulously designed by well educated, high IQ criminals to do the most malicious things. “Spin” does not begin to describe the deception involved. It is the infamous “Big Lie” so well articulated in a 1925 publication authored by a German statesman mistreated by the history books no less than in the news.
Our “Justice” system makes a mockery of the name, similarly to how our “Defense” department inverts the meaning of terms. It is a wholly criminal enterprise that only removes actual criminals from the streets when they find the competition unwelcome.
And of course, there is nothing civil about what I endured in my dealings with Charlottesville.
My tale is a cautionary one, and too long to present here. But before I begin reading the text I mean to present, it may be worth briefly recapping the timeline that led to this crescendo.
While race has always played some role in our politics, my hyper awareness of it might be said to have begun in 2012 upon my arrival in New Hampshire, as I moved here to join the Free State Project.
Before this I had grown up New York, where one cannot help but be exposed to the vibrant diversity we are so often told is our greatest strength, and as the consequences of this brought the government ever more intrusively into our lives I had decided it was time to flee.
It was impossible not to notice the correlation between my quality of life and the almost all White demographics of my new home. That seemed to me quite uncontroversial, since it was intuitive that without the people who commit the crime there was less need for government intervention.
Not long after my arrival, there arose a discussion among some libertarian activists about the case of Trayvon Martin, who had been shot not long prior by a Hispanic man on neighborhood watch, named George Zimmerman.
Though my supposed fellow libertarians would say they were all about gun rights and self defense, Mr. Zimmerman was condemned as a racist murderer. One activist said to me “It’s a crime to be black these days”.
Thus began my long conflict with the Free State Project and its participants. In due course, this would result in my removal from their participants list and prohibition from attending their events. While ostensibly for other justifications, today it is clear to me that this organization had become hijacked by Leftists and I had been expelled because they spotted me for a Right winger before I myself knew it.
This didn’t make me an absolute pariah. I was subsequently made a routine co-host of a nationally syndicated broadcast talk radio show which aired from Keene, New Hampshire, called Free Talk Live.
But my observations about race would in time have me removed from this role as well.
The first time was a mere suspension after I defended Stefan Molyneux’s first video regarding race and IQ. Participants in one of the show’s Facebook groups called Mr. Molyneux a racist for posting this video, and since I always understood racism to be a unique sort of evil born of ignorance and deceit, I challenged the accusation aimed at this sincere intellectual inquiry.
I was called a racist myself for this, and asked to apologize. I stated that I would apologize just as soon as someone would correct my error, and no such correction being forthcoming, I was suspended indefinitely from my role in the show.
After some time, I was invited back, and accepted. Only to be fired permanently for using a racial epithet on Twitter some months later.
The media frenzy surrounding this, I gather, is what brought me to the attention of the Alt Right movement, and soon I had callers to my show trying to inform me about the Jewish Question.
Like Hitler, I at first thought this was preposterous. Also like Hitler, I decided to inform myself. Similarly, I was shocked by what I found, and for knowing what I came to know, the most powerful forces in the world set out to destroy me, with limited success.
Thus began the fastest leg of the journey.
With the libertarians, my rhetoric had become quite fiery. The limited resistance I met under that banner had not well prepared me for what I walked into as I eventually began to describe myself as a White Nationalist. I had thought with the libertarians I was taking on the State itself, and this being the most powerful institution of all, it would be a comparatively small matter to anger some Jews and Left wing activists.
The first hint that I had miscalculated came when I visited the Bilderberg group meeting in Chantilly, Virginia. That day I brought a bullhorn and noted the disproportionate representation of Jews among the most powerful people in the world, as evidenced by the participants list circulating online. Upon publishing this video, I met a rapid backlash. A strike on my YouTube account, complaints to my service providers, social media suspensions, DDOS attacks on my website, threats of violence, to name just a few of the signals that delivered the message loud and clear.
“You’re over the target.”
As I prepared to go back to Virginia for the Unite the Right Rally, I noticed something remarkably different about the news coverage. It wasn’t just spin. It was war propaganda.
I had not yet finished reading Mein Kampf, but I had gotten to the part where Hitler discussed the subject of propaganda. He had considered it a grave error that his side of Word War I portrayed the enemy as weak fools who would easily be crushed by their superior forces. He noticed the enemy had portrayed them as savage monsters in need of slaying, and that this was by far the more effective route.
The media had taken precisely that tone with us. It was considered a foregone conclusion that our side was there for no other purpose than to commit the most heinous acts of criminal mayhem conceivable.
Noting this, I wore a body camera, and exercised the most extreme caution in all of my dealings. Were it not for that body camera, the Plaintiffs in the lawsuit would almost certainly have prevailed, and me and my co-defendants would likely have all been indicted for just such a conspiracy and sent to prison for a very, very long time.
As most of you know, I was charged with crimes in Charlottesville. Recounting the absolute fiasco that this turned out to be would be a lengthy process and we’ll have to come to this another day. Suffice it to say, I went from facing 60 years in prison, to taking a misdemeanor plea deal and leaving with time served, having spent 107 days in the county jail, and another 8 months on house arrest in Virginia. It was tempting to go to trial, but back then I had a carry permit, and I would not have risked it for anything. So to keep my 2nd amendment far more than to avoid prison, I accepted the prosecutions offer.
My plea agreement in Albemarle County, whatever its flaws, likely saved me in recent months. As part of the agreement, Albemarle County agreed to bring no other charges stemming from my conduct on August 11th at UVA. Were it not for that, I’d likely have been dragged back there with the other men being charged for burning to intimidate.
In the months that followed, my being deplatformed from social media and payment processing rendered me destitute. I was unable to pay my attorneys in the civil lawsuit filed by Roberta Kaplan, the same Jewish lesbian who sued Trump for raping E Jean Carroll, and they dropped me as a client.
From then on, I was left to fend for myself.
On January 21st 2020, I submitted to the Court a motion styled as an objection to Plaintiffs motion for evidentiary sanctions against my codefendant, Elliot Kline. But this 364 page document was much more than that, it laid out my entire theory of the case, and included over 150 exhibits.
The very next day, in a daring pre dawn raid, the FBI broke my door down, and dragged me off to prison, for the next three years on a completely farcical charge of threatening someone who I had repeatedly called the police on for threatening my life and sabotaging my website.
The search warrant for my apartment said the search was to be conducted during the daylight hours. But it was conducted at 3am, in order to create maximum danger, confusion, and fear, in direct violation of the court’s order.
I promptly informed the court and the Plaintiffs of my new contact information, but the Plaintiffs in the case continued to send all correspondence to an email address they knew I could not check. This misconduct was only discovered by me 14 months later, after I received the court’s decision on my codefendants’ motion to exclude the Plaintiffs’ supposed expert witnesses.
I, having never heard of these witnesses before this, notified the Court that something had gone wrong, and the Plaintiffs covered this by sending me a 2 terabyte encrypted hard drive. What I was supposed to do with this in a county jail, was left unexplained. But the Court accepted this as unintentional and asserted that it in no way prejudiced my defense.
Two weeks after receiving this hard drive, it was taken away from me by the United States government, when they shipped me to a private prison facility in Tallahatchie Mississippi.
At that facility, I informed them that I was a pro se defendant in a civil lawsuit, and that all the materials for my defense were on this hard drive, and that I needed it to review for my defense. The facility staff told me to have my lawyer send it to me, and I tried in all futility to explain to them the meaning of the term “pro se”.
This went on for a month, after which, I was moved, yet again, this time to the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. There, I was housed in something known as the Communications Management Unit, wherein I was denied regular communications privileges, and my access to computer resources were severely restricted.
After a couple of weeks, I was given permission to receive the drive. After the drive was received, it was held by the staff for another two weeks.
By the time I got this drive, it was September of 2021, and the trial was scheduled for the end of October.
I asked the court for a continuance, repeatedly, and those motions were ignored by the Court.
Since I could not use the drive often enough to prepare for my defense, I asked to receive paper copies of documents.
When the documents were delivered, I was informed that I would not be able to possess those documents in my cell. That I could only view them in the presence of a staff member, and that this staff member would be available, basically whenever he felt like it at random times on random days with no capacity for me to schedule it, and only for about an hour a day.
I informed the court of all of this, urging the Court to act on my motion to continue.
The court ignored me.
I had a friend send me the document I submitted on January 21st 2020, and the prison held that document from me pending their review of it. That document too, it was said I could not possess on the unit, and on the day I was allowed to view it for the first time, I was told to pack up my property, because I was being shipped out for trial the very next day.
When I packed up my property, I asked the property officer how I was to bring my legal papers and the hard drive with me, he said this would not be possible. I explained that I was a pro se defendant about to be shipped for trial in a civil lawsuit, and that I needed my papers to conduct my defense. He told me, in essence, tough shit.
I asked that these materials be shipped to me in Virginia. I got no response. The materials were not shipped.
I was moved to the Grady County jail in Oklahoma, I was not told when I would be moved from that facility to Virginia. During this time, I scribbled furiously all that I could remember from my trial preparations, using the only writing instrument available to me, a golf pencil with no eraser. There was no pencil sharpener on the unit, so whenever I needed my pencils sharpened, I would have to ask a staff member, and they were by no means in a hurry to help your humble correspondent.
After two weeks, I was told to pack up my things, because I was to be moved again. I was not allowed to take with me any of the papers I had prepared, and I was, now for the fifth time, stripped of all my trial preparations.
During trial I was housed at the Central Virginia Regional Jail. There, I had no access to computers, so even if I did receive the hard drive, it would have been useless there.
When I got to the court, Judge Moon asked if everyone was prepared for trial. I informed the court that I was in no uncertain terms totally unprepared, and noted that this very morning, the Plaintiffs had dropped on me a brand new encrypted hard drive with thousands of files I had never seen or heard of before, as well as a giant box of documents whose contents were an absolute mystery to me. This, I reminded the Judge, was why I had demanded a continuance over a month ago, and was so puzzled as to why the Court had not responded to the motions.
The Court took my concerns under advisement, and we adjourned for the day.
Over the weekend, the jail told me to call Plaintiffs’ counsel Michael Bloch. When I called Mr. Bloch, he read aloud to me Plaintiffs’ motion to sever my trial from that of my codefendants. He also read aloud to me the objection to this motion from my codefendant’s counsel, Mr. Kolenich.
I was provided with no hard copy of the document.
On Monday morning, in the courtroom, Plaintiffs’ counsel asked Judge Moon to rule on their motion. I objected to it, stating that this was just a means by which to cover up for their misconduct, and the Court’s failure to act on my motions.
Judge Moon gave me a binary choice. Sever the trials or proceed. Without waiving my objection, I chose from this menu, to proceed.
Without any of my trial preparations available to me, I struggled to piece together what had happened.
Those were the circumstances I fought this case under.
And I won. No matter what anybody else tells you, I beat that case.
There were six counts to the action. The first two counts were federal laws and alleged a racially motivated violent conspiracy. The 2nd two counts, were Virginia laws pursued under the same theory of liability. the fifth and sixth counts were against James Fields, and since he had already pleaded guilty to murder and was prohibited by the terms of his plea agreement from making exculpatory statements, there was nothing that could be done to protect James.
The jury did not reach a verdict on the federal counts. They found us liable on the Virginia statutes, which, though we were sued for a violent conspiracy, the statute’s text said we could be found liable for mere harassment. James Fields was, obviously, found liable.
What this tells you is that we were found liable for something we were not sued for, and that’s not how the law works.
This, along with the sabotage of my trial preparations, is the subject of my appeal before the Fourth Circuit, pending at the time of this writing.
Before the Jury broke for deliberations, I attempted to read the following statement to them. But I was cut short.
Today, for the first time, you will hear me read this statement in full.
The text below is presented without edits. Typos and all, to preserve the authenticity of the document. This was composed during the trial on a laptop provided to me by the Court. I was not allowed computer access at the jail, and this was the only means I had to type.
This is 13 pages printed, at 7,749 words.
Closing Argument
I did not conspire to commit racially motivated violence.
I did not conspire to do anything illegal on August 11th and 12th of 2017.
You already know this, for lots of reasons.
First, there’s the history before the events at the heart of this dispute. Some of which I attended, and some of which I did not. There was the DC Free Speech event. I attended. There was no violence. There was Charlottesville 1.0. I did not attend. No violence. There was the event in Pikeville Kentucky. I did attend. There was no violence. I did not go to Berkely, and from what I’ve seen, I made the right call. You need to remember as you evaluate the evidence in this case, that me and my codefendants are different people who did not all share the same motives. Mr. Kolenich told you “Yes, the Alt Right wanted to fight the Antifa. They wanted to do so legally”. I did not want to fight the Antifa, no matter the legal justifications, because I have better things to do with my life. I had a carry permit in August of 2017, and I would not risk it for the joy of punching some communist degenerate.
You heard discussion of “The Pikeville Template” or “The Pikeville Model” because that was something we sought to emulate going forward. Close coordination with law enforcement, resulting in a successful event. That success being defined by a lack of violence and us managing to have our say.
You heard segments of Radical Agenda Episode 318, published in the leadup to the events in dispute, which was titled “Political Violence” that’s CCEX165 in evidence. The Plaintiffs want you to think that me publishing something titled “Political Violence” is evidence of my unlawful intent to commit racially motivated violence, but you heard the audio, what I was able to play of it, anyway. I put the entire unedited and unredacted episode into evidence, and the episode’s title derived from a piece I read on the air titled “Political Violence is a Game the Right Can’t Win” by David Heinz at Jacobite Magazine. Far from calling for political violence, I was saying exactly the opposite. I was saying, we cannot behave like the people we oppose. It won’t work. Not for us.
In keeping with that obvious reality, you have heard audio of me and Jason Kessler when I was on my way to Charlottesville. That’s CCEX164a in evidence. Radical Agenda Episode 340. I discussed with Jason his communications with law enforcement during that interview. Jason told me that he was actively coordinating with them, and that even if we lost our permit, the police would still put up barricades and protect us. Somebody who wants racially motivated violence would find such impediments unwelcomed, but I, in contrast, was comforted by the news, because, as you heard me say, I did not want to be put in a position where I might have to defend myself. I discussed my carry permit with Jason, and indicated I did not want to put it at risk.
You have seen my entire SMS history with Richard Spencer, PX-3317, and the Plaintiffs have called your attention to me telling him I was willing to risk violence and incarceration for our cause. You subsequently heard Mr. Spencer and I both say, that we do not think of it as a risk to get what we want, and so, the implication of this message is that I do not want violence, or the incarceration that tends to accompany it. You have seen video of the violence, and you have heard testimony that I was in jail, both of which were outcomes I sought to avoid through cooperation with law enforcement.
My desire to cooperate with law enforcement was also illustrated by my use of a body camera. You’ll recall seeing the video where I offered the SD card to the police, to prove I had not drawn my weapon on several men who confronted my members only listener meetup in the Walmart Parking lot in Charlottesville. That entire video is in evidence as CCEX152. You see me all alone, you see me with my listeners, you see the confrontation with Antifa, you see the police arrive, no brandishing, just the false accusation. You heard me testify that I was afraid after having been falsely accused of a crime!
You saw the paywall feature on my website was used to hide the meetup details from the public. That’s in evidence as CCEX114 and 111. Nobody should have known where we were except paying customers. How did these guys find us? I had good reason to be afraid.
You saw a blog post from me titled “Unite The Right Updates”. CCEX024a, in which I told my listeners what Jason told me, that, “The police have said they will still cooperate with us, by keeping out Antifa and other opponents, setting up barricades, and doing their best to maintain peace and order in the city. The possibility exists though, that if we do not get legal remedy, it could be declared an unlawful assembly and we could be ordered to leave. If that happens, those staying would be engaged in an act of civil disobedience, risking arrest, exposure to tear gas, and other hazards which present themselves in such scenarios.”. Knowing that, like me, many of my listeners are concealed carry permit holders, I told my listeners, “Civil disobedience and guns do not go well together, however. No matter what anyone else says, if you never take another word of advice from me again, heed this warning: If you are coming armed, obey the law, and the orders of law enforcement, no matter what. You cannot tell the cops to go to hell with a gun on your hip. It puts all of us, and our cause at risk. If you are considering disobeying the authorities, you must leave your you must leave your firearms secured elsewhere. Whatever violent ideas we entertain on the Radical Agenda are not to be carried out here. The Radical Agenda is an entertainment program, and if you try to start a revolution this weekend, it will not be the revolution you bargained for, I promise. If you want to prove yourself a warrior, show some discipline first.”
Front stage behavior? Certainly, but there’s nothing contradicting it. This is the messaging I sent to the public, and it is the only messaging I sent on the subject. Mr. Simi did not tell you that this was secret Nazi code talk, and you wouldn’t believe him if he did, because it’s obviously very straightforward.
Like the Radical Agenda Listeners’ Meetup, the torch march was supposed to be a secret too. But you heard audio of Jason Kessler saying it was posted to ItsGoingDown.org. You heard me testify that I know ItsGoingDown.org to be a website devoted to violent communist propaganda.
That’s partly why you heard audio of me telling Jason Kessler that if we’re going to do it at all, I want the cops involved. CCEX032. That’s a quote. I said “If we’re going to do it at all, I want the cops involved”. You heard Jason agree with me. You heard him say that we should avoid violence, avoid even drama, that we should behave like quote “civilized white people”. You heard Jason testify that he did not know the body camera was running when we had this exchange, and after Plaintiffs’ counsel showed a clip of me announcing the camera, I testified that Jason had not arrived at the time that clip was recorded.
You saw Defendant Elliot Kline tell me that he just talked to the police, and that they were allowing us to conduct the torch march, that they would protect us from Antifa while we did the event, and that they would actually be sending extra police with overtime to do so. That’s in evidence as CCEX161b.
Ms. Kaplan, in her closing argument today, told you that there was no evidence or testimony that we had a permit for the August 11th event at UVA. But you did hear an audio recording of Ellito Kline telling me and others that the police had okayed the event, and once again, Ms. Kaplan is deceiving you because the truth is not on her side.
During that briefing you heard me ask about the legality of weapons and armor, because I wanted to obey the law. I specifically asked about a helmet, because I was worried about getting hit in the head with a bike lock.
Maybe you believe that Jason and Elliot were telling the truth, or maybe you think they were lying, but what you know for certain is that this was the information I had available to me when I made my decisions.
I told you in my opening statement that I met Azzmador for the first time on August 11th. That statement has not been refuted. You saw me get introduced to Tom from Vanguard for the first time. Then you saw a black man at the leadership meeting for the Unite the Right Rally. CCEX161c.
You saw a subsequent section of the same body camera video, in which Elliot tells Azzmador to bring his fighters at 5:00am. I told you, under oath while I was on the stand, that this plan changed after that video was recorded, because the concerns about us losing our permit had been alleviated. You heard several people testify that this was a permitted event on August 12th. This is uncontested. I testified under oath that as of the end of that meeting, the plan was for us to be able to get our vans right up to the park, so we would not have to come into contact with counter protesters. You heard Nathan Damigo testify that this was his understanding as well.
While that turned out not to be the case, this time I am going to ask you to believe me, that this is what I was told. If my words were contradicted by video, you would know about it.
You have heard the Plaintiffs’ expert witness Mr. Simi testify about front stage and back stage behavior, optics, and doublespeak. Mr. Simi testified that he had a chance to review hundreds of thousands of Discord messages, deposition testimony, and discovery in this case including private emails and text messages.
At no point did Mr. Simi tell you that my body camera video, the ultimate backstage pass to a so called leadership meeting, was doublespeak. He did not tell you, that calling the police was some kind of code word for hate crime.
He was silent on that subject, and for good reason. It did not fit his narrative, which assigns violent and evil motivations to his political enemies, whom he has made a career out of defaming with his veneer of academic respectability.
You saw the moment that I arrived on the UVA campus on August 11th. You heard the instructions that I got from Elliot Kline. He told me, and everyone else who didn’t have a torch to stand on the outside of the formation, and that it was our job to keep Antifa away from the torches. The instructions were not to attack racial or religious minorities. The instructions were not to bait people into fistfights and respond with overwhelming force. We were to keep counter protesters or Antifa away from the torches. That was a totally reasonable safety concern, which, though you heard us chuckle about it at the so called leadership meeting, we sincerely wanted to avoid coming to fruition.
And remember what you saw on that video, CCEX126, when Gorcenski approaches me. Gorcenski isn’t afraid of us at all, he comes within arm’s reach with no fear whatsoever and speaks in mocking tones. You hear me talking about “Bike Lock Guy”. I asked several Defendants about Eric Clanton, aka Bike Lock Guy, who hospitalized somebody at a Trump rally by bashing their head open with a bike lock, not long before the events at the heart of this dispute. Gorcenski mocked our concerns, calling them a myth, then asked me “How was your Walmart Meetup, Chris?”. Here I am worried that I might get my head bashed open, and somebody I don’t know is asking me about the moment I was framed for a crime earlier that afternoon. It scared me, and rightly so.
Now, remember, the torch march was supposed to be a secret. Here’s Gorcenski at it.
The Walmart meetup was supposed to be a secret, and here’s Gorcenski asking me about it.
Why does Gorcenski know what I’m doing before I do?
I testified that the totality of the video from the evening of August 11th allows the viewer to see every moment of every angle around the Thomas Jefferson statue during the fighting. I demonstrated my mastery of that subject by showing you my actions from various different angles.
In my opening statement I told you that no video would show me pepper spraying Kristopher Goad or Emily Gorcenski. You have not seen any video which showed this.
I did tell you that I no less pleaded guilty to two counts of assault, one on each of those names, and this fact was raised by Plaintiffs’ counsel when they cross examined me toward the end of this trial. Neither of those people are party to this suit, and those convictions, even if they were based on true claims, would not be proof of the Plaintiffs’ claims against me in this case.
I am not going to waste your time showing you the video over and over again of what I did. It does not matter. I do not need to prove I was defending myself. You could conclude, that after Thomas Massey started the fight, which you saw, and Mr Willis acknowledged, you could conclude that after the other side started it, I totally exceeded the boundaries of self defense, and you could think I was a terrible violent person. THEY STILL NEED TO PROVE that it was racially motivated, and that this racially motivated violence, caused their damages. THEY CAN’T DO THAT.
Who did you see me fighting? Not Devin Willis. Not Natalie Romero. You saw me pepper spray a white man. You saw me punch another white man. You saw me run right past Emily Gorcenski while I was trying to disarm the white woman with the baton. You saw me get pepper sprayed by the same white man I had just pepper sprayed moments ago, and then you saw the white woman with the baton grabbing my shirt collar where the body camera used to be. CCEX132a and CCEX135a.
You saw that baton, coming down from on high. Like an axe. Ready to literally, not figuratively, crack skulls, not unlike the bike locks you heard me and other defendants repeatedly express our concerns about.
Then you saw me receiving first aid for the pepper spray I had suffered, CCEX166a, and you saw that when I was asked who maced me, I said “Commies”. Not Jews. Not blacks. Not supporters of racial or religious minorities. Commies.
Then you saw my text message to Defendant Elliot Kline, PX-3317, asking for his contact with the police department so I could talk to them about the fight. He said he would get back to me, but then August 12th happened, and this concern got backburnered.
You know my entire experience of August 11th. I have no secrets from that day.
Did you see Mr. Willis or Ms. Romero get injured in any way on the evening of August 11th? Did you see them receiving first aid? Did you find it odd that after more than four years, Mr. Willis decided to accuse me, without evidence, of pepper spraying him, in this courtroom? Did you find it odd that his attorneys made no effort to prove that claim once made? Did you find it odd that Ms. Romero, just yesterday, after more than four years, and after already being questioned by me at the start of this trial, suddenly thought, maybe I had punched her? Did you think it odd that she might want to check the video before elaborating on that allegation? She withdrew it, of course, you’ll recall. Do you recall seeing a woman in a wheelchair being pepper sprayed? Do you recall seeing students pulled down from the statue and systematically beaten one by one, as Ms. Sines testified to? Do you really think the lawyers on the other side would have left that out of their opening statement if it had happened? Do you really think you wouldn’t have seen that video?
I wonder if you find something else odd. It’s really been troubling me. CCEX157. Gorcenski, who knows everything that’s happening before it happens. Shows up at the monument where Willis and Romero have linked arms and started chanting. As Gorcenski approaches, the camera is blocked, we hear “Heads down ya’ll, heads down!” and a little pep talk “This is really important to us!”
“No Nazis! No KKK! No Fascist USA!”
Gorcenski lifts the camera to show the feet of the people around the statue. Gorcenski walks around the statue, filming only feet. Then, When Gorcenski sees Willis and Romero, the camera catches only those two faces, and then goes back down to filiming feet, and when a woman in a wheelchair rolls by, Gorcenski blocks the camera again.
That’s a plan. That’s what I told you about. The Diversity of tactics. Mr Willis and Ms. Romero are the sympathetic victims embedded in the violent conspiracy, and Gorcenski knows it, which is why only their faces are shown. Everyone else is hidden. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, remember when I asked Mr. Willis about Emily Gorcenski the first time, he started off calling Emily Gorcenski “She” then he changed it to the genderless singular “they”, but he denied knowing that Gorcenski was transgender, which Ms. Romero testified to knowing.
This is a lie. These people are lying to you.
That’s why Mr. Willis, Ms. Romero, and Ms. Sines all say they can’t remember who told them about the formerly secret torchlight march. Although, we did get Ms. Sines to admit she follows ItsGoingDown.org on Twitter. She says it’s a news site, I say it’s violent communist propaganda. It’s up to you to decide who is telling the truth.
Mr. Willis said he was psychologically traumatized by this event because he could no longer pretend his race didn’t matter, but Mr. Willis was already a member of the Black Student Alliance, and Peoples’ Action for Racial Justice. Nobody who thinks race doesn’t matter gets involved with something that has “Racial Justice” in the title.
Ms. Willis told you that she wasn’t into politics. She just moved to Charlottesville because she wanted to be close to the White House. She assured us that the red bandanas on the so called “street medics” indicated they were quote “non partisan”. She worked for a non profit that promoted “civic engagement” and if you believe all that civic engagement was devoid of ideological motives, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
It’s easy to forget Ms. Sines was even there when this happened. Traumatized though she claims to be by the whole thing, she live streamed the fighting from a safe distance, seeking to go viral. That video is PX-3204. She was close enough to the march toward the statue though, and despite all this talk about a violent mob of Nazis who love to beat innocent students, she was perfectly fine getting right up close to us as we marched. But, for some reason, she knew to keep her distance once we got to the monument, didn’t she? She knew exactly what was going on, just like Gorcenski. Neither one of them showed any fear of the marchers until we got to the statue, because they knew it was at the statue where their coconspirators would attack us and start the fight.
Traumatized though they all claimed to be from the evening of August 11th, Willis, Romero, and Sines all showed up on August 12th too.
Not that I got to see them. I was maced first thing in the morning by one of the guys who confronted me at Walmart, the same guy I argued with at UVA before I walked away to avoid a fight. Now he’s here in the same black and white Adidas shirt, with a pepper spray ambush, waiting to take me out.
Ms Kaplan, in her opening statement today told you quote “It was the Plaintiffs., not the Defendants, who were injured.” These people live in their Twitter mentions. All their critics have been banned from social media. They have no idea how ridiculous they sound to real people.
Mr. Willis testified that the people with their arms linked blocking the street were only making a symbolic gesture. The rallygoers could have just walked on the sidewalk, or chosen a different entrance. Well, I tried to walk on the sidewalk, and you saw what happened to me.
You saw it from two different angles. I never saw it coming. It was completely without provocation of any sort. He saw me from down the street, walked through the crowd, produced the pepper spray down low, then came up and sprayed me in the face. I screamed, and had to be dragged into the park.
Terrified, I asked “Are we surrounded right now?” wondering if I was about to get my skull cracked open by a bike lock or a baton. The people who were treating me, assured me that we were okay. A man said “We’re gonna kill em” and I, unable to identify the speaker through my blindness, said “Don’t kill anybody you’ll make it worse!”
Asked by the reporter who sprayed me, for the second time in as many days I said “I don’t know! Communists!”
And sure enough, you saw the hammer and sickle flag outside the park. You saw the raised left fist in countless signs, including one carried and produced by Mr. Willis. You saw the Industrial Workers of the World Flags, the anarcho communist red and black flags, sines with far left catch phrases like “No Human Being Is Illegal” and “Solidarity”.
Now, I could stop here. I did not conspire to commit racially motivated violence. I told my listeners to obey the law. I told event organizers I wanted the cops involved. I asked Elliot Kline for his police contact. I asked about the laws of virginia with regard to defensive items. I obviously wasn’t here to break the law, and you know that.
I was not active on Discord. I was not in the #leadership-discussion channel. I was not a moderator or administrator. I was not a leader or member of any organization. I had my own hotel room, where I spent most of the time you have not heard about during that weekend. Each defendant who I questioned, I asked what role I played in their plans, and they all said I played no role. I asked Jason Kessler what roled I played in planning UTR, and he said, None.
So perhaps I should just sit down and shut up. I won.
But I told you at the beginning of this trial, that I had higher ambitions than simply escaping liability. I wanted you to know what happened. I wanted to cut through the lies which have enabled so much trouble over the last four years.
I told you in my opening statement that this case was about hate speech. Plaintiffs’ counsel lied to you, by saying that they and their clients believe in freedom of speech. They don’t. You already know this. CCSW008.
To be clear, I am not arguing that the First Amendment grants me some affirmative defense to the allegation of conspiracy. I am not saying that I have a constitutional right to injure people. That’s a red herring that the Plaintiffs are using to try and trick you. What I am saying is that my speech was not an unlawful conspiracy. I am saying that it lacked the requisite intent, and the alleged connection to the Plaintiffs’ supposed damages.
In fact, Judge Moon gave you a very specific instruction on this subject this morning. Quote “Abstract advocacy of lawlessness, or mere advocacy of the use of force is protected speech”. End Quote. He didn’t have to tell you that talking about race is protected speech, because you already know this, even if the Plaintiffs haven’t figured it out yet.
I am very familiar with this legal standard. I need to be, because I make my living by exploiting it. What I do for a living is illegal in most countries. The Alt Right would be illegal in most countries. They are not illegal in this country, but they will be if you do not protect us from abuses like the one at work in this suit. That is why I bring up hate speech. Not to confuse you about the issues in this case. If we conspired to commit racially motivated violence in Charlottesville Virginia on August 11th and 12th, that’s illegal, and the First Amendment provides us no relief.
But neither does conspiracy law provide relief to the Plaintiffs, because there was no conspiracy. The Plaintiffs know there was no conspiracy. They knew it when they filed this lawsuit, and it was confirmed throughout the discovery process. They hired their experts in the summer of 2020, after years of abusing the legal system failed to produce any evidence of a conspiracy, because they needed somebody to redefine the plain meaning of words, in an effort to deceive you, and avoid liability for filing a meritless lawsuit.
If the Plaintiffs could sue us for hate speech, they would. Since they cannot, they’re suing us for a non existent conspiracy. They are trying to shoe horn size 12 hate speech allegations into size 5 conspiracy heels.
But they don’t fit. I say terrible things on the Radical Agenda, far worse than most of my codefendants. But that’s the front stage behavior, as the Plaintiffs’ white supremacy expert, Mr. Simi put it. That’s the dangerous bad boy image I have cultivated for my entertainment product. My private, back stage communications are about callilng the cops and obeying the law. That’s the truth, and it is reflected in my communications with my codefendants.
The Plaintiffs’ experts did tell us some important things, though. Ms. Lipstadt said there was no such thing as an innocent racist joke. In her view, a racist joke is never just a joke. It’s an attack on somebody’s identity, and that’s never okay.
Ladies and Gentlemen, that’s the reasoning behind all hat speech laws ever contemplated. It’s not just that the speech is offensive. They say it causes actual harms. For these people, our speech is violence, and their violence, is speech.
Ms. Kaplan said, “None of this was funny, and none of this was a joke”
Mr. Simi told you that jokes are “doublespeak”. You hear a tasteless joke, but the people who we’re trying to silence hear a violent racist conspiracy, so we have to stop them from joking.
I asked him if he had ever written or spoken in favor of hate speech laws, and he said “Not unless you can prove I have”
Talk about doublespeak.
Plaintiff Thomas Baker swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Then he said the Defendants in this case had a history of racist and antisemitic violence. When I asked him to provide details, he had to admit that he couldn’t come up with any actual examples of this, and what he meant to say, was that Jason Kessler had said racist things.
Plaintiff Devin Willis said nobody is required to listen to hate speech. Today, your verdict should inform Mr. Willis, that people who show up to the permitted demonstration featuring hate speech, do have to listen to hate speech. If he wants to avoid hate speech, then he can stay home.
Plaintiff Natalie Romero said White Supremacy was systemic, and that offensive symbols should be removed if they upset the people. When I asked her if that meant the majority of the people, she declined to elaborate, and said that symbols which offend her should be removed.
Plaintiff Marissa Blair said she came to the rally thinking that it was about hate speech.
Plaintiff Wispelwey said that Hate speech leads to violence, and that cases were working their way through the cours which would set that precedent. He testified in this courtroom that he wasn’t sure what cases he was referencing, but I think you’re smart enough to know thaty he was talking about this case, and you should not set that precedent.
The fact is, that to the extent hate speech leads to violence, it is only because people like the Plaintiffs in this case, perpetrate, aid, and abet that violence.
Let’s stay with Plaintiff Wispelwey. He’s a piece of work, isn’t he? Can you believe the balls on these people, to put a fake priest on the stand? He came in here and told you that he was a mainline protestant, and then he said Jesus is Antifa.
Not, Jesus opposes Fascism. Not, Jesus tends to vote Democrat. Jesus is Antifa.
Now, the Christians in this audience will recall that Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life. Wispelwey says, Jesus is a mob of armed communist degenerates who assault people they disagree with.
Jesus said turn the other cheeck. Antifa says “Watch your fucking back!”
Ms Sines told you that the people she was marching with did not have weapons, they were not wearing Goggles, some people might have had helmets, but they were totally peaceful. Mr. Baker told you the crowd was joyous. Ms. Romero was marching with the same crowd, as were Ms. Blair and Mr. Martin. They all denied the crowd was armed, they all denied the crowd was violent, they all denied the crowd was antifa. They all denied that they were wearing masks, or doing anything wrong.
But we saw many weapons in the hands of the people they were marching with. We saw that in several different videos, and I will not waste your time going over them. I will just show you briefly, Ms Sines’s video from August 12th. PX3207
That chant. They all denied hearing it, but let’s look at this photo from the helicopter on August 12th, PX1353.
There’s no way they don’t hear this. All of these Plaintiffs who were at that scene, knew exactly who they were marching with. It was antifa, it was a violent, armed mob, chanting Antifascista, and each and every one of them lied to you in this courtroom under oath.
Ms. Kaplan went on at some length about how Antifa was some kind of fake excuse for violence that we just made up post hoc to justify our crime wave. You who have seen a little bit of news coverage over the last year, are doubtlessly insulted by the implication that she thinks you are so stupid.
She said I accused them of being members of Antifa, that’s a lie too. Firstly, I have not made accusations. I have asked questions. This obviously makes Ms. Kaplan very uncomfortable, because she has a very guilty conscience. Secondly, Antifa is not a thing one becomes a member of. None of the Defendants are members of White Nationalism, and none of the Plaintiffs are members of Antifa. When Ms. Kaplan says he clients are not members of Antifa, she is playing word games, and you are surely by now learning that she cannot be trusted.
But her clients do support Antifa.
Plaintiff Wispelwey told Slate Magazine in CCEX052 “antifa saved my life twice on Saturday”. He said “Thankfully, we had robust community defense standing up to white supremacist violence this past weekend.” He said “On Saturday, battalions of antifascist protesters came together on my city’s streets to thwart the tide of men carrying weapons, shields, and Trump flags and sporting MAGA hats and Hitler salutes and waving Nazi flags and the pro-slavery “stars and bars.”
He went on to say “A phalanx of neo-Nazis shoved right through our human wall with 3-footwide wooden shields, screaming and spitting homophobic slurs and obscenities at us. It was then that antifa stepped in to thwart them. They have their tools to achieve their purposes, and they are not ones I will personally use, but let me stress that our purposes were the same: block this violent tide and do not let it take the pedestal.”
He closed with “White supremacy is violence. I didn’t see any racial justice protesters with weapons; as for antifa, anything they brought I would only categorize as community defense tools and nothing more. Pretty much everyone I talk to agrees—including most clergy. My strong stance is that the weapon is and was white supremacy, and the white supremacists intentionally brought weapons to instigate violence.
I did not tell you that everyone with a bandana was Antifa. I asked why so many people were wearing the same disguises. Ms. Kaplan inferred this because she knows that you have figured out that she is lying to you. Nobody had an honest answer for that question.
I did not tell you that green whistles meant somebody was with Antifa. Plaintiff Elizabeth Sines told you that the many green hats in the videos you’ve seen, were issued by the Communist group known as the National Lawyer’s Guild. I asked Ms. Romero what if any relationship she had with that organization, and then I asked her where she got the Green Whistle. She said she didn’t remember having a green whistle. I showed her someone else with a green whistle standing right by her, and asked her if this refreshed her memory, she said it did not. I showed her blowing the whistle on the corner of 4th and Water, and she stilll had no recollection of the whistle.
Why is Ms. Romero lying about a stupid whistle? And why is Ms. Kaplan lying about the questions I asked her clients?
Ms. Dunne also tried to trick you. She said that since Judge Moon deemed certain facts established, that a conspiracy actually existed. That’s not true, and that’s not the law. Kline and Ray are deemed to have conspired because they did not comply with discovery. They might have refused to comply with discovery because they were drug dealers or closet homosexuals or because they had committed some other crime. Perhaps they really did conspire to commit racially motivated violence, unfortunately, we’ll never know. Your obligation as jurors is to judge the evidence against each individual defendant, and Ms Dunne lied when she said the conspiracy was already established with regard to us. It isn’t established. They haven’t proven there was any conspiracy, they have only proven that Kline and Ray refused to produce evidence when the Court required it. And for that matter, they have proven that to the Court, not to you. So you have not been provided with the full circumstances of that non compliance. All you know is that they defied the Court. That has nothing to do with Me, or the other Defendants who have not had those adverse inferrences entered against them.
In fact, you are not even allowed to use the testimony that Elliot Kline did give in deposition against me. That is the case for several of the depositions in this case, and if you have seen me cross examine witnesses, you know why. I ask penetrating questions that my codefendants and their attorneys do not ask. You are better informed about the facts of this case today, than you would have been if I had not been a defendant, because I exposed information that would not otherwise have been exposed. When I do not get to cross examine a witness, that witnesses testimony cannot be used against me. That is not a mere footnote or technicality. If the judge did not give you that instruction, the Plaintiffs would not have been allowed to introduce that evidence at all, and after today’s closing arguments, you can see why they fought to have that evidence introduced against my codefendants.
You saw Dillon Hopper say that death was reasonably forseeable. You have to determine if I thought racially motivated violence was the reasonably forseeable outcome of my actions, not whether Mr. Hopper, who I could not cross examine, thought so three years after the events in dispute happened.
You saw Froelilch saying all kinds of things after leaving the movement in disgrace after cheating on Elliot Kline with Richard Spencer. Ms Kaplan told you that Communist was a code word for Jew, based on their deposition testimony. You have to determine if I thought communist was a code word for Jew, and the evidence for that is scarce indeed. It’s a historical fact that Karl Marx was a Jew, but if I have a problem with communism, that is not an invidiously discriminatory animus. THEY HAVE THE BURDEN OF PROOF! They have to prove, that me and my codefendants conspired to carry out racially motivated violence that caused their damages. If they prove that I conspired to commit politically motivated violence that caused their damages, then you cannot find in their favor on the most serious allegations in this case.
You saw Mr. Chesny say I don’t recall a few dozen times, and Mr Pistolis invoke his 5th amendment rights.
If you judge me based on any of that, you are violating Judge Moon’s orders, and that would make you no better than Defendant Kline or Defendant Ray.
I have not been accused of destroying evidence in this case. The Plaintiffs have shown you my text messages and my private emails.
And contrary to Ms. Kaplans lies, I have not deceived you about my relationships with my codefendants. I told you I hardly know these men, and that I knew them even less on August 11th. That is not changed by the fact that they appeared on my show, or that we were in the same city block for an hour or two in the months before the events in dispute.
It isn’t even changed by the fact that I stayed in Elliot Kline’s apartment for 3 months after I got released from jail in December of 2017. Four months AFTER these events. You might notice that the Plaintiffs’ didn’t bother to explore that issue when they had me on the stand. And since they didn’t waste any time proving that I had a relationship with Elliot Kline, I’ll count on you to know that I am telling the truth, as I have throughout this trial.
Now, let’s talk about ratification. The Plaintiffs tell you that we “ratified” the violence of the weekend, because we issued statements in the wake of these events declaring victory and saying that the men on our side who got arrested were innocent.
If you do the right thing, I will be found not liable in this case. When I leave here, I will celebrate my victory.
Does that mean that I like getting sued? Does that mean that this trial was part of the plan all along? Does it mean that I baited these people into suing me so I could waste Jewish money out of racial animus?
Obviously not. To say so is preposterous, and the same is true of the Plaintiffs’ claims that we are coconspirators because we ratified racially motivated violence. Once again, these people have insulted your intelilgence, and you should not reward them.
I did not want to get into a fight. I did not want anyone to get hurt. I wanted the police to keep us separated from the Antifa, and I took reasonable precautions in pursuit of that outcome. Despite all of these efforts, violence ensued, because the Plaintiffs’ associates are dangerous criminals who will stop at nothing to see us silenced. When that violence happened on the evening of August 11th, I pepper sprayed a man, I punched another man, I got pepper sprayed, and then I declared victory. On August 12th, I got pepper sprayed. I talked some tough shit to the camera, and then I declared victory. That’s called rhetoric, it’s called spin, it’s called propaganda, by some, and there’s nothing nefarious or criminal about it.
You have heard me and other Defendants say that James Fields is innocent. I still believe that. Not all of my codefendants do. But when I say James Fields is innocent, I am not saying that I endorse racially motivated premeditated murder. I am saying that I do not believe James Fields committed that crime.
Ladies and Gentlemen, if I was going to lie to you today, this would be the easiest lie for me to tell. I never met James Fields before I saw him in jail weeks after the events in dispute in this court. I have never sent him any money, I have never sent him a letter, I never interacted with him on social media, and no evidence has been produced that there was any connection between me and James Fields ever. I can throw him under the bus and nobody will think any less of me.
I tell you that I believe James Fields is innocent, for the same reason I tell you everyhing else I’ve told you during this trial, because the truth rolls comfortably off my tongue.
The Plaintiffs played for you the clip from the HBO film where I said “The video appears to show somebody strike that car” and “The amount of restraint that our people showed out there was astounding”. As in, I consider restraint, to be a good thing.
You’ve seen the video I was referencing, of somebody attacking James’s car. That’s Plaintiffs’ exhibit 0313. Of this video, Ms. Kaplan, in her closing argument, acknowledged that somebody struck the car. She said that this person quote “justifiably” endquote, struck the car.
I had been pepper sprayed twice in two days, I understand these people, I know what they are capable of. I know how they lie. It makes perfect sense to me, that James Fields was a scared kid, trying to get home to his family, that he was attacked by the same mob that attacked me, a terrible accident occurred as a result, and an innocent man went to prison.
James Fields pleaded not guilty in the city of Charlottesville. He went to trial, after being denied a change of venue, and was found guilty. He was sentenced to life plus 419 years in prison.
Then the federal government threatened to sentence him to die. To avoid a death sentence, he could either take his chance with a jury again, or he could plead guilty and be sentenced to life without the possibility of release.
I pleaded guilty to a crime I did not commit to avoid exposure to 40 years in prison, in exchange for the right to go home the same day. I said in my opening statement, that you would do it to if you had a choice between going home or risking time in prison. Would you also plead guilty to a crime you didn’t commit, to avoid a death sentence, if you were already spending the rest of your life in prison anyway?
I honestly do not know what I would do in his position. It is not a choice I would want to be made to make. Consciousness of that fact, is why I demanded police involvement in the events at the heart of this dispute, as a condition of my participation.
Part of that plea agreement is that he not make exculpatory statements. If he contradicts the terms of his plea agreement, the federal government will kill him. So, he has not testified, and his attorney, lacking any desire to get his client killed, does not make those statements for him.
So the truth is, we will never actually know, what went through James’s mind that day, because the government has a gun pointed to his head, and will pull the trigger if he tells us.
But I have never said, and at least so far as the evidence in this case has shown, none of my codefendants have ever said, that we endorsed James Fields’s racially motivated premeditated murder.
I do not believe that James Fields murdered Heather Heyer. I do not believe that these Plaintiffs are owed anything by any of my codefendants.
Those are my beliefs, and I though I cannot prove this to you, I hold them as sincerely as I hold out a hope that my people will someday have a homeland.
But what I know for certain, and what the evidence has shown to all of you, is that I did not conspire to commit racially motivated violence. I was neither privvy nor party to any such conspiracy, if any such a conspiracy existed, it was kept a secret from me. I was certainly powerless to stop that which I knew nothing of.
I came to Charlottesville in August of 2017 hoping to promote my radio show. I was widly successful in this, as I ended up being featured in an HBO episode that won two Emmy awards, and was seen by millions of people all over the world. Had it not been for the violence, this would easily have been the greatest thing that ever happened to my career in media.
After reviewing the evidence in this trial, you know who was responsible for that violence, and it was not me.
So whatever you think of me personally, or the terrible things I say to shock and entertain my audience, your civic duty as a juror is to find that I am not liable for the Plaintiffs’ damages, and no matter what I may have said online about any group any of you may identify with, there is no doubt in my mind that you will meet your obligation.
I am very grateful for your service, and I hope you agree that I have not wasted your time during this trial.