Daily Beast: Biden Taps a War on Terror Veteran to Stop White Supremacists
By: Integrity First For America News Coverage
The Daily Beast explored how the Biden administration can approach the crisis of violent white supremacy, highlighting our Charlottesville lawsuit as a model for accountability:
Johnson added, combating far-right violence isn’t just a criminal matter. “You can go after them civilly,” he said. That’s what a nonprofit called Integrity First for America has been doing since Charlottesville.
After the Justice Department under Jeff Sessions opted against conspiracy charges for the organizers of the deadly 2017 march, Integrity First for America filed suit against the event’s leaders to target their money. They relied on statutes like the Reconstruction-era Klu Klux Act of 1871 passed to protect recently emancipated people from vigilantism. The case is expected to go before a Charlottesville jury in the fall—just a few blocks from Heather Heyer Way, even—but it’s already taken tens of thousands of dollars from far-right leaders in court fees and fines. Richard Spencer said the case had been “financially crippling” during a hearing in June, according to court papers.
“If we as a small nonprofit can take on these white supremacists and neo-Nazis in court and financially cripple Richard Spencer—his words—using civil litigation, imagine what can be done by the Justice Department, criminally and civilly, using the current tools that they have,” said Amy Spitalnick, Integrity First for America’s executive director. “We’re doing this already. It’s working. Use us as a model. Use our case as validation that this strategy works.”