Washington Post: Unite the Right organizer appeared to instruct followers to mislead law enforcement, court evidence suggests
By: Integrity First For America News CoverageBy Ellie Silverman, Washington Post. Read the full article here.
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.
“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.
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.