Buzzfeed News: I Want Them To Start Something”: White Supremacists Allegedly Strategized How To Provoke Counterprotesters Ahead Of The “Unite The Right” Rally

By Christopher Miller, Buzzfeed News. Read the full article here.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia — As the plaintiffs in the landmark federal lawsuit against two dozen neo-Nazis and other white supremacists who organized the “Unite the Right” rally called their final witnesses, they zeroed in on the alleged calls for violence in the run-up to the event, presenting organizers’ own message threads as evidence.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn on Tuesday called to the stand Jason Kessler, a white nationalist, member of the Proud Boys, and one of the primary “Unite the Right” organizers. The attorney spent hours Tuesday confirming and walking Kessler through his extensive communications with other white nationalists and neo-Nazis in the months, weeks, and days leading up to Aug. 11 and 12, 2017. Those communications — over social messaging platforms including Facebook and Discord, as well as by phone and text message — made clear that Kessler was looking to draw like-minded people from across the US to Charlottesville. In one post, he promised it would be “the biggest Alt-Right event of the year.”

He also referred to the rally in fighting terms, saying it would go down in history as “the Battle of Charlottesville.” Many of his messages discussed violence and provoking antiracist counterprotesters as a means to not only foment a race war, but also get media attention.

“We need a new way to tip off antifa when we want them to show up somewhere,” read one message that Kessler wrote to other white nationalists. “We definitely want to play these people into our hands Saturday in Charlottesville.”

In that same online discussion, Kessler spoke about the need to hide weapons while in public and his expectation that at least some attendees would be packing firearms.

“Can you guys conceal carry? I don’t want to scare antifa off from throwing the first punch. Big scary guns...will keep Antifa away. I want them to start something,” Kessler wrote. “Lots of armed military vets in attendance so we aren’t going to be lacking for firepower.”

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