CHARLOTTESVILLE — Ahead of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville four years ago, lead organizer Jason Kessler appeared to instruct supporters to mislead law enforcement, in communications presented in court on Monday.
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“If the police ask you how many people we have coming don’t tell them,” Kessler wrote in a July 18, 2017, Facebook message. “If they think we have more than 400 they might be able to help the city pull our permit. Privately we can tout the 800-1,000 number better for our enemies to underestimate us.”
Kessler, a University of Virginia graduate, filed a permit with local authorities for a rally that brought hundreds of white supremacists to his hometown of Charlottesville. That August weekend turned deadlywhen an avowed neo-Nazi drove into a crowd of counterprotesters and killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
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Kessler is one of two dozen defendants — including some of the country’s most infamous white supremacists and hate groups — testifying during a federal civil trial to determine whether they engaged in a conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence during that weekend.
Inside Jason Kessler’s hate-fueled rise
His testimony on Monday came during the trial’s fourth week, following statements from white supremacists, plaintiffs who allege physical harm and emotional distress from the violence in Charlottesville, and experts on far-right extremism.
Chris Cantwell, who became widely known as the “crying Nazi” following an emotional video posted when a warrant was issued for his arrest, was also questioned Monday during court proceedings that provided new insight into the close coordination among defendants ahead of the rally, illustrated their preparation for what they called the “Battle of Charlottesville,” and highlighted jarring celebrations of violence.
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Kessler and Cantwell have boasted to their followers throughout the trial about how well they think the case is going for them.
Kessler maintained a real-time chat with more than 150 fans during the first three weeks of the trial, commenting on the testimony and posting photos of witnesses. Cantwell, who is serving a 41-month federal prison sentence for extortion and threat convictions from a separate case, has been appearing on podcasts to brag about his “spoken-word performance” during the trial.
But inside the courtroom on Monday, plaintiffs’ attorneys presented evidence from messages, social media posts and podcasts that was designed to depict Kessler and Cantwell as two leaders looking forward to a planned weekend of violence in Charlottesville.
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Plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn showed the jurors messages that appeared to contradict Kessler’s own statements as he distanced himself from the violence that weekend. (Kessler defended his apparent deceptions on the anticipated crowd size by saying he did not want people to speculate to police and inadvertently bungle the permitting process.)
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Then plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Bloch presented evidence showing Cantwell bragging about violence and using slurs on his podcast, as well as a video of him displaying several guns he brought with him to the Unite the Right rally.
Cantwell embraced his statements, proudly agreeing in court that when he shared a cell block with defendant James A. Fields Jr., who drove into the crowd and killed Heyer, he greeted Fields with a Nazi salute and later hugged him.
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“I’m really sorry this is happening to you,” Cantwell said he told Fields.
Integrity First for America, a civil rights nonprofit organization, is backing the lawsuit, which is underpinned by a Reconstruction-era statute designed to protect newly emancipated Black people from the Ku Klux Klan. The trial began Oct. 25 with jury selection and is expected to last until Nov. 19.
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Monday’s questioning saw two of the trial’s most prominent defendants turn on each other. Richard Spencer, a fellow U-Va. graduate who is representing himself, sparred with Kessler, questioning him directly.
“So when did you determine that I was a sociopathic narcissist?” Spencer asked Kessler, who responded with a slew of insults about Spencer.
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“You just sort of made my skin crawl,” Kessler said, rattling off words like “slimy,” “cold,” “inhumane” and “serial killer” to describe Spencer. “You just were despicable to everyone you ever came in contact with.”
Throughout the trial, defendants have tried to deflect responsibility for the rally’s violence, blaming one another, police or anti-fascist activists known as “antifa.” DeAndre Harris, a Black counterprotester, was severely beaten in a parking garage the day of the rally, and others were pepper-sprayed by a mob of white supremacists at a torch-lit march on U-Va.’s campus the prior night.
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Kessler testified on Monday that he came up with the idea of the torch march but denied leading it. He said Spencer and another defendant “were in control.”
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Kessler tried to paint himself as eager to create a peaceful, permitted rally. But Dunn, one of the attorneys representing nine plaintiffs who allege physical harm and emotional distress from that weekend, presented evidence that appeared to show the opposite.
“If you want a chance to crack some Antifa skulls in self defense don’t open carry,” Kessler wrote in a June 2017 message presented in court. “You will scare the s--- out of them and they’ll just stand off to the side.”
This message is part of a leaked trove from the group-chat platform Discord, where, Dunn said, Kessler was the event coordinator and moderator for a server dedicated to the Charlottesville rally.
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The Discord server featured groups discussing leadership and planning, with messages calling for violence, and afterward celebrating Heyer’s death.
The night of the rally, at 11:45 p.m., Kessler wrote to another defendant, “We definitely need to delete the discord.”
On Monday, Kessler denied he was attempting to destroy evidence, instead stating he found it “inappropriate” that people were mocking Heyer’s death.
Dunn then showed the jurors a tweet from Kessler days after the rally, in which he disparaged Heyer and called her death “payback time.”
Kessler tried to defend himself, stating, “At the time, I didn’t have full information …”
Dunn stopped him. “Sir, there’s no question pending.”