[TV static drones]
Downloaded from YTS.MX
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Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
- What's up, guys?
- How you doing? - How are y'all doing?
- Livestreaming? - Yeah.
- All right...
- Yeah. - Cool.
[laughter]
- Ten minutes, we're gonna start forming up,
so get ready with your torches.
Make sure they're ready to go.
- Damn, they keep coming.
- If you do not have a torch, go to--
- I think we're getting near 300, 400.
And this is the fucking bachelor party
before the real thing.
- It's happening.
- Go ahead and start lighting your torches.
We're gonna start passing around the flame.
Let's go. Light the torches.
- Come on, give me-- give me a light.
Do you have a light? - A light?
Somebody-- - Okay, fine.
- Hail victory. - Hail victory.
- Hail victory, boys.
- Hey, get this going.
[indistinct yelling]
[people cheering]
- Hail motherfucking victory!
- Let's go, baby.
- Let's go, boys.
[yelling continues]
- Oh, baby.
- Hail victory!
all: Hoo. Hoo.
Hoo. Hoo. Hoo. Hoo.
Hoo. Hoo. Hoo.
[tense music]
[people clamoring]
- A horrific scene in Charlottesville, Virginia,
a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence
and chaos.
crowd: You will not replace us.
Jews will not replace us.
♪ ♪
- Nine people who were injured during the violent events
in Charlottesville are now plaintiffs
in a lawsuit that targets leaders
of white supremacist organizations.
- This is the trial that will set the narrative
about what happened in Charlottesville.
♪ ♪
- The rise of Nazism and white supremacy in our country
is a very real risk.
They need to be fought in court.
[applause]
[indistinct chatter]
[bell chiming]
- Do I have to dial a 9 or what?
- Yeah, dial 9 and then you're good to go.
[touch tone beeps]
[bell chimes]
- Welcome.
Please announce yourself.
- Charlottesville team.
- Hi, everybody. This is Karen Dunn.
And then Robbie will say who Robbie is,
and you guys can know our voices.
- Yeah, I'm sitting right next to Karen, and this is my voice.
And I speak really quickly, so we'll get you on by 5:00.
[laughter]
- Primarily we're here to answer your questions.
And we really want for you, the press,
to be able to guide this discussion.
- It's become clear that there was very overt planning
in these private chat areas.
They were discussing with each other
how to prepare for violence and specifically about,
how do we make this appear as if it's self-defense?
- In a lot of ways, it is a very apt comparison.
- Technology can be both a blessing and a curse.
Obviously technology has gotten us
so many things in our country.
On the other hand, it enabled these guys to do a conspiracy
the likes of which this country has never seen.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
crowd: Jews will not replace us.
- Whose streets? crowd: Our streets.
- Groups from across the country,
including the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis,
came to rally against plans
to remove a Confederate statue from a park.
- Right now, we are in a civil rights struggle
to save white people from ethnic cleansing
which is happening across the Western world.
- First a torchlight march and then violence
at the rally the next day.
[indistinct chanting]
[indistinct yelling]
[people clamoring]
- Amid the chaos, police say a car
intentionally slammed into a crowd of counterprotesters.
[people screaming]
- 19 people were injured.
32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[sirens wailing]
- I've been a litigator in New York City
for more than two decades,
so I consider myself pretty thick-skinned.
- Morning. - Hey, Phil Morning, everyone.
- How are you doing? - Good.
Charlottesville actually shocked me.
And I'm hard to shock.
- So we're gonna spend today going through discovery.
- Yep. - And our discovery plan.
- So we can go through where we are
right now, I think just everyone's...
♪ ♪
- July 1, 2017, I opened my own firm,
which is where we are right now,
called Kaplan Hecker & Fink.
- That is absolutely correct.
We were sitting literally here in these offices
on kind of card tables 'cause we didn't have
any furniture, with laptops,
and Charlottesville happened.
As it was happening, we were kind of watching it
here in real time.
We only had about four or five people
working here at that point.
And I think it was the day after the president
gave a press conference.
So I said, hey, let's watch--
it was kind of stupid of me, in retrospect--
let's watch the press conference over lunch.
- I will tell you something.
I watched those very closely, much more closely
than you people watched it.
And you have--you had a group on one side that was bad,
and you had a group on the other side
that was also very violent.
- They showed up in Charlottesville...
- Excuse me. Excuse me.
- To protest the removal of that statue--
- They didn't put themselves down as neo--
and you had some very bad people in that group.
But you also had people that were
very fine people, on both sides.
You had people...
- I remember one or two of the paralegals
got incredibly upset and had to kind of
run out of the room in tears.
I really--that's why I say it was a mistake.
And after watching that and kind of the shock
that someone who was president of United States
could say something like that,
I immediately thought that something needed to be done.
The saying that people have about me in this law firm
is, "Robbie acts."
And I think it's pretty true.
Right, we're, like, between a-- right, we're between a rock
and a hard place.
The attorney general at that time
was Jeff Sessions, who doesn't exactly
have a wonderful record on civil rights.
So I did not think that he would devote
the resources of the Department of Justice
to investigating it.
So I decided to bring a lawsuit.
When I wanted a partner to do this with,
I wanted the best possible lawyer,
the toughest possible lawyer.
And that person was obviously Karen Dunn.
♪ ♪
- Before this case, I did not know Robbie.
I knew who she was, and she's a very prominent attorney.
And the first introduction I had to her,
she called me out of the blue--
and actually, I neglected to call her back.
But this is so classic Robbie.
She called me again.
We talked and she was starting her law firm and said,
do you want to sue the Nazis with me?
And I said, you know, of course, sure.
Actually, what I really said was, you know,
the only thing I had to think about
was the security implications for my family.
But I--you know, I talked to my husband
and he said to me exactly what I thought,
which is, you know, how can you not?
♪ ♪
- They always say about lawyers
that if you can't describe the crux of your case
in less than a minute, you're either not a very good lawyer,
or you don't have a very good case.
Our claim is that a variety of groups and individuals,
namely the defendants in our case,
for weeks, even months, really,
leading up to August 11th and 12th in Charlottesville
conspired together as part of a deliberate plan
to descend upon the town of Charlottesville
and to commit violence against minority groups
and their supporters based on a motive
acting out of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia,
anti-immigrant bias, et cetera.
And to do that under the law is a crime.
It's a crime under a very old law
known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.
And it says that if private actors conspire together
to commit racially motivated violence
against minorities or their supporters,
that violates the law.
- When the KKK Act was originally passed,
it was a tool for the government
to bring prosecutions.
And then later, it was recognized
to grant a private right of action to citizens.
This enables private citizens to bring a civil suit.
- So we used that law, which has
not been used all that much.
And we used a Virginia state analog to that law
which is basically very similar to the KKK Act
but under state law rather than federal law.
We added the Virginia statute because you always add
any other claim that fits the facts that you can.
One of the cases that we're gonna rely on,
interestingly enough, is a 19--
It's got to have a date--
80, so a 1980 case based on a big fight
that that broke out between some folks
who were doing an anti-Klan rally and the Klan.
The complaint was clearly written on a typewriter,
so it kind of looks ancient.
But shockingly the facts are remarkably similar
to what we allege here.
There are very few of these cases that succeed.
The KKK Act hasn't been used very often
because it's a very high standard.
You have to show that a group of people
are conspiring to commit racialized violence.
♪ ♪
- In a conspiracy, you have leaders, you have organizers,
and you have foot soldiers.
We ended up filing suit against 24 defendants.
Some of them are groups. Some of them are individuals.
They are the most powerful groups
within the white supremacist movement
and individuals who are some of the well-known
white supremacists in America.
That starts at the top with Richard Spencer.
Richard Spencer was the head of the alt-right.
He really coined the term "alt-right,"
and he was sort of a political figure within the movement.
- To be white is to be a striver, a crusader,
an explorer, and a conqueror.
Hail Trump.
Hail our people.
Hail victory.
[cheers and applause]
- Lead organizers, which include Eli Kline,
who was part of Identity Evropa...
And Jason Kessler,
who was sort of a local alt-right figure
who was trying to make it onto the national scene.
- Every day, you guys come up here
and talk about Black people; you talk about gay people.
You don't give a damn about white people.
And white people have a right to organize
and advocate for our rights as well.
- They brought in people like Matthew Heimbach,
who was the head of the Traditionalist Worker Party,
a group dedicated to the ideals
and images of Adolf Hitler.
- And then they brought in other folks who had been known
for extremely racist beliefs and violence,
like Chris Cantwell, who has a podcast where he has
tens of thousands of listeners, many of whom
are armed extremists.
- If you were like, oh--you're like, I've been listening
to a radical agenda, and bah,
and, you know-- and it got me really mad,
and I think I'm gonna go beat me up
some gay Black folks,
you know, I guess crazier things have happened.
- And then we also wanted to pursue the most violent
foot soldiers in the conspiracy,
like James Alex Fields, who was the person
who drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd
of peaceful protesters,
killing Heather Heyer
and injuring a number of our plaintiffs.
- So he drove--
Fields drove across right through here.
There was supposed to be something blocking.
But in the reports that have come out since,
there was only one kind of stanchion right there.
And the protesters were right here.
I should say that various of the defendants
have been criminally prosecuted.
James Fields was tried and convicted
and is serving a lifetime in prison.
He will never see the light of day, given what he did.
I've never been a prosecutor.
It's maybe the only thing I regret in my career,
that I never was a prosecutor.
But at this point, it's not happening for me.
I'm just a civil lawyer.
I can't bring a case that puts anyone in jail.
So what this lawsuit is fundamentally about
is to get justice and compensation
for our nine plaintiffs,
all of whom were there that weekend,
all of whom were peacefully protesting,
and all of whom were injured, whether psychologically
or physically or both, by what happened to them.
- Oh, yeah, I forgot about this.
Oh, my God, look at Mommy.
Oh, and you're in the back too.
Look how young Mommy is.
I really like this picture.
Mommy will have to see this picture.
- Oh. - Yeah.
- Look at that.
Look at you.
- I know.
I was a little fat baby.
But I was cute, though.
Oh, goodness.
I grew up knowing that my great-grandmother
was the daughter of a slave.
My uncles told me about a time where
they were going to school--
schools had already integrated--
and the bus driver would pass over them.
He wouldn't pick them up.
So eventually their mother came out to the bus stop
and stopped it and said, you know,
why aren't you picking my kids up?
My kids need to go to school.
And he said, niggers don't ride my bus.
- Yes. - Mm-hmm. And there you got...
This wasn't so long ago.
We're still fighting the same fight,
just at a different level.
♪ ♪
- Joining me now is one of the plaintiffs
in that lawsuit against the Unite the Right
rally organizers, Marissa Blair.
When you guys went to that rally,
what did you think you were going to confront?
- We thought we were gonna confront
Nazis, white supremacists.
We were like, you know what? No, this is our city.
We're not--they're not gonna come here
and not meet resistance.
We're gonna go.
[indistinct chatter]
- The car drove through the crowd.
And in a split-second decision,
Marcus put his own life in danger
when he pushed his fiancé out of the way
and then was struck by a car.
- You hear tires screech,
and then I look up,
and you just see bodies going everywhere.
And then the only thing I could do
was just push her out the way.
- She stood up to white nationalists
and was severely hurt in the process,
but the August attack in Charlottesville
isn't stopping Natalie Romero.
- It was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.
- I don't think anything can ever really prepare you
to witness something so horrific--
watching your home be overrun by people
who wish to cause as much harm
and wreak as much havoc as possible.
- My role as a pastor, a grassroots organizer,
a father is to call on people
to stand up in the face of evil
and stand up for what is good.
- The part of this case that's actually the most striking
to me is the bravery of the plaintiffs.
You're talking about a group of people
who already could not feel secure in their community.
And then these people decided that they would put themselves
out there publicly to fight against this horrible thing
that had happened.
- If something's not right, then speak up about it.
Don't just hide and say, oh, it's not me.
It doesn't have to do with me.
Heather didn't do that.
Heather spoke up for Blacks, gays, you know, Jews, anyone.
I just want people to have uncomfortable conversations
and point out something that's not right
instead of sitting there and just saying,
it doesn't have to deal with me.
[applause]
♪ ♪
I saw Heather five days a week,
sometimes on the weekend.
We would always joke and say I'm such an optimist
and Heather was a pessimist,
but we blended so well together.
Good boy.
Want a treat?
Here you go.
It seems natural.
I know a lot of people are saying, oh, you're so brave,
and this is so big.
It seems very natural to me.
I'm not looking for $1 million.
I'm not looking for $100.
What I'm looking for is a precedent that can be set
that will go throughout time.
- Would it make sense, Robbie or Karen,
just to give sort of a quick spiel on where things stand?
- I think it's fine, but I think Michael should do it.
- Great.
- 'Cause he's kind of managing a lot of stuff day-to-day.
- Thanks. Yeah, so we are--
- Well, before you get there, why don't you introduce,
like, how long you've been here, what you did before,
and why you play such a crucial role?
- Aside from being our honorary woman.
- Right, yeah. [laughter]
That's--so prior to coming to Kaplan Hecker,
I was at Bronx Defenders for seven years.
And I've been here about six weeks.
- I had about--
about 13 trials, about 12 acquittals.
- For the nonlawyers in the room,
that's an astounding record.
Michael Bloch had been a criminal defense attorney
in the Bronx, representing people who couldn't afford
to represent themselves.
And then because of that trial work, I said to him, look,
it's time to flip sides.
You're going from being a defense attorney
to being a plaintiff's attorney.
And you're going from criminal to civil.
This case is for you.
- So we are getting ready for depositions.
We are somewhat, I think, delayed at this point
by not having access to their documents.
- We still don't have any of the handheld or laptops
from any of the defendants.
- And there's nothing they've already destroyed?
- I would be highly surprised if they--
weren't things they deleted.
- Discovery generally is gathering evidence.
You can request documents.
You can subpoena evidence.
You can take depositions, which is sworn testimony.
- We are working hard to get evidence from Discord,
which is the third-party platform
where the defendants communicated
in private chat rooms.
And, you know, this is a very unusual case and something
that I can't even remember having
in any other case, which is that the Discord chats
were released publicly.
♪ ♪
- Someone--to this day, I don't know who it is--
managed to get into those messages and either hacked
or what they call in computer terminology "scraped" them...
And then published them on a website called Unicorn Riot.
We got a lucky break.
♪ ♪
- Did you get the sense from the meeting
that the consensus was, we should depose Tyrone?
- Yes. Unequivocally yes.
- In addition to the Discord servers,
the defendants communicated on cell phones and emails
and verbally.
And a number of their intentions,
which is a lot of what the case can turn on,
you can only get from the defendants themselves.
- I feel like we should just go for it.
- Great.
Can't wait. Yeah, I'm gonna send you the--
- Do you know where he is, though?
- He's in Oklahoma.
♪ ♪
My grandfather, he and my grandmother
escaped Nazi Germany.
My grandmother arrived the night of Kristallnacht.
And then my grandfather went back to fight in the war.
And I've, long before this case,
thought a lot about how just unbelievably courageous
I think that is.
And I don't mean in any way to equate myself to that,
but I do feel good that this is going on
and I am part of an effort that's
doing something about it.
Should we talk about the new exhibits?
- Yeah, so these are all the new--
so okay, this is 40 through 143.
- So this is the new 92.
So we're in Tulsa getting ready to depose Tyrone--
or he goes by Tyrone on Discord,
although his real name is Michael Chesny.
We didn't know his real name when we brought the case.
But by the time we figured out what
his real name was, it was basically
too late to add defendants.
Did you see this?
In a pinch, you hand someone your flag,
and maybe they get blood on it.
- That's--
- Because he is so explicitly violent
and he's so connected to the defendants,
he makes very clear that the intent
was to commit violence at Unite the Right.
The hatred that he spews,
I feel like that is likely to be
the most sort of intense part of this deposition.
- I don't know.
I mean, he will tomorrow.
[laughs]
- This is the videotaped deposition
of Michael Joseph Chesny in the matter
of Sines et al. versus Kessler.
- Is this a Discord post by Tyrone on June 9, 2017?
And it's a photograph of a red hat, and on the hat,
it says "Make lynchings great again."
Do you see that?
- I do.
- Did you post that?
- I have no recollection of that at all.
- Do you deny posting that?
- I have no idea.
- This is the videotaped deposition
of Christopher Cantwell.
- Jason Kessler.
- Matthew Heimbach.
- This is Richard Spencer defending myself.
- The biggest challenge in this case
is that we are dealing with people who,
in many circumstances, don't have
a tremendous amount of respect
for the justice system and its requirements.
- [chuckles] I don't remember that,
but I've no reason to disbelieve you.
- Okay, and is that a filing that Mr. Kalanick made
that he was representing you?
- Looks like.
- Well, is it?
- Yes.
- And--
- Although they misspelled the name of the organization.
Sad. - All right.
Let's focus on my question.
- No, I'm not gonna focus on your dishonest question,
you lying Jew piece of shit.
You're trying to frame something one way,
and I'm telling you what it is.
And now you have it.
♪ ♪
- In a criminal case, the government
has the ability to pretty much get
whatever evidence they want, right?
They can go to people's houses, knock on their door,
and seize things with a search warrant.
In a civil case, it's not the same.
The only way that I can get information for a civil case
is to ask the other side.
And in any civil case, it's cumbersome.
But in this case, it was,
I think it's fair to say, insane.
- There are at least six phones that are
gone or fell in the toilet or are destroyed.
But the explanations for where the phones have gone
are colorful and will play well with the jury.
- It was kind of like litigating
against teenage violent truants.
[laughs] They just didn't care.
- They almost treat it like a game.
You know, this person who said, I have three phones,
now says, if I did say that, either I was lying then,
or I was joking.
- Yep.
I agree.
- The stuff in the Discord, all of that that I saw,
I regarded as not threats, either jokes
or just BS locker room talk
protected by Brandenburg v. Ohio.
- They believe in plausible deniability.
They will create rhetoric saying it was just a joke.
- To be honest, I--
I'm not sure I ever have engaged in a Nazi salute
that wasn't in jest in some way.
- It's a joke, but they really mean it at the same time.
And it's a joke that they're saying it's a joke.
They pretty much had the same defenses.
One, this wasn't really a conspiracy.
- How many times did you communicate
with Jason Kessler over the phone?
- I haven't the vaguest idea.
- These are all a bunch of guys who just happened
to show up in Charlottesville.
Some of them know a guy who knows a guy.
- In terms of the, you know, on-the-ground planning,
I had little connection.
- The second defense that they used
is that everything we did that day was in self-defense.
- Do you agree with me that you committed violence that night?
- I defended myself against a violent criminal.
- Defense number three is that it was just about free speech.
- 'Cause the police allowed us to be attacked by mobs
of anti-fascists, stood down, through either incompetence
or corruption, and violated our
First Amendment rights to assemble.
- The problem with that argument
is that while the First Amendment
gives you the right to have certain beliefs
and to talk about certain beliefs,
even if those beliefs are hateful
and racist ideologies,
what you're not entitled to do
is acting based on them or motivated by them,
commit acts of violence.
- I mean that I would love to talk
about this fucking pig every day on my show
because she's a barrel of laughs.
But since I'm involved in litigation with her,
that's unwise, and so I should probably keep my mouth shut
until after the fucking thing is over.
[indistinct chatter]
[dishes clattering]
- It's funny 'cause it's like an ice cream scoop,
and there's nothing less like a scoop of ice cream
than matzo ball dough.
I'm not completely insane, at least I hope not.
So I'm aware of the risk.
And one of the reasons our office
is in the Empire State Building
is that the Empire State Building
has some of the best security of any building in New York.
I joked the other day to some of my colleagues.
We were coming back from court,
and I joked that if I get killed,
it's definitely not gonna be at work.
'Cause it'd be very, very hard to kill me
at the Empire State Building.
This weighs very heavy on Karen.
Karen has three kids. I have one son.
Of course it impacts me. I'm not gonna say it doesn't.
But my job is to get up every day
and put on my symbolic armor and to try
to put all that other stuff as much kind of
deep down as I possibly can.
It's tasty.
It's a little soft.
My wife says I'm very good at repression.
So you can talk to her about that.
Put your finger a little bit closer to the edge.
There.
[all singing in Hebrew]
♪ ♪
- Wow, that is really quite a statistic.
Isn't that crazy?
- Anti-Semitic incidents surged 57%
from 2016 to 2017, the highest one-year jump since the 1970s.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
- Right. - Hi.
- Larissa. - Erin.
Nice to meet you. - Hi.
Yeah, of course. - Oh, great to meet you.
- Great to meet you. - Thanks.
[indistinct chatter]
- Thank you, everyone, for coming out tonight.
Unite the Right was a flash point,
but it was by no means an isolated incident.
We only need to look to Pittsburgh
or to the supermarket shootings in Kentucky
to see the extent of the crisis we're now facing.
I do think that, particularly in the year
or so since I accepted this job,
the public consciousness on this issue
has changed by nature of what has happened in the world.
♪ ♪
Pittsburgh happened.
Poway happened.
El Paso happened.
So much of that can be traced back
to Charlottesville and to the defendants in our suit.
- During the course of his deadly assault on the people
in the synagogue, the gunman made statements
regarding genocide and his goal
of killing Jewish people.
- The Pittsburgh shooter was in communication
with our defendants in Charlottesville.
The guy in New Zealand used a hashtag--
it's called Fashtag--
that was created by Matthew Heimbach.
- Right.
- These aren't just isolated people.
It is part of a movement.
- On social media, the apparent shooter
posted a 74-page manifesto,
calling himself an avowed racist.
He also mentioned President Donald Trump
by name.
- The idea that Jews are going to replace the white race
either directly or through their support for refugees
and immigrants, that's central to a lot of the ideology
held by our defendants and many of their followers.
Racism is intertwined with anti-Semitism.
- The shooter told a SWAT officer
he had wanted to kill Jews because Jews
were trying to commit a genocide on his people.
- He describes himself as a white nationalist.
In short, he believes white people
are being systematically replaced
by immigrants in this country.
- In the chant, "You will not replace us"...
- Mm-hmm.
- Who is the "us"?
- White people.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
- This is about justice for Charlottesville.
It's about our plaintiffs.
But it's also about putting this extremism on trial.
- So I'm gonna have you kind of leaning
a little bit just to...
- We seek significant judgments,
which means that it really has the potential
to bankrupt and dismantle
the groups and the leaders that are at the center
of this movement.
- It's very hard for me to think about this case
without thinking about my grandmother,
who left Poland before the war.
She got out with her parents and her sister,
but a lot of her friends and other family did not make it.
I just remember how my grandmother
taught me the importance of the words "never again."
[indistinct chatter]
- Thank you for coming. - Jeff Hirschberg.
Thank you. - Thank you so much.
Every few years in this country,
we have a trial that is much more than just the trial.
We are not appreciating the threat that this poses
in this country today.
We cannot not fight back.
- No. - No.
[siren wailing]
[seagulls cawing]
- Hey, Jess.
- I'm good.
Robbie has a call with a judge and can't make it.
- I would just point out that that was going to be
the start of our trial in Charlottesville.
- Yeah, it was.
Because Mike and I were talking about this...
- I went from literally working around the clock
to prep for these depositions to--
I think we're six months in--
April, May, June, July, August, September--
eight months into lockdown.
I have a new baby, which is very exciting.
- Hi, bug.
- Hi.
Did you have a good nap?
Yeah? No.
- He's like--
- I did till you woke me up.
The world has changed six times since this case started,
and it's unbelievable.
- I made the decision to run for president
after Charlottesville.
If you say we have no need to face racial injustice
in the country, you haven't opened your eyes
to the truth in America.
George Floyd's six-year-old daughter, who I met with...
♪ ♪
- I always say that I had the most incredible experience
growing up here in Appalachia.
Like, we are about as--
I would say I'm about as Garrett County as it gets.
Growing up here made me want to go out
and protest in Charlottesville those two days.
[cheers and applause]
You know, I shared the videos that I was taking
on social media, and that got a lot
of attention nationally.
It went viral on Facebook.
That was, like, the first time where I felt, like, a backlash.
People would say I was a liar.
And then people would share the video and, like,
they'd say it was doctored.
[bell rings]
- Door three.
- I have felt afraid a lot.
You know, I have a very intense
security system in my house now.
We got dogs.
- What you doing, big guy?
[dog barks]
- I've just been paranoid.
I do feel ready.
I think, for a really long time, I, like,
needed more time just to kind of, like,
mentally prepare myself.
All right. I'll see you.
- All right. - Bye, Jack.
But now I'm ready for this chapter to close.
I really am.
♪ ♪
- It's nice to be able to drive by here without, you know,
impulsively raising a middle finger to the statue
that isn't there anymore.
♪ ♪
- Hello.
Hello. - Hello.
♪ ♪
- Will you send that to me? - Yeah.
- Yes, absolutely this one too. - Yeah.
- Welcome to Charlottesville.
♪ ♪
This is basically my trial diet,
which is oatmeal in the morning, plain;
whole wheat bread, a little bit of peanut butter;
and then I just crush these at night.
[laughs]
Outlines, crosses, opening, and witness prep all week.
What I'm trying to do with the opening is introduce
each plaintiff and tell the story
in the way they experienced it.
That's Devin.
This is him in the morning of August 12th at McGuffey Park--
you know, very peaceful, happy counterprotest.
[dog barks]
- [speaking Spanish]
[dog whines]
- Right. Follow.
Good girl.
I spend a lot of time alone,
and so Luna, we'd be in the kitchen
and I have no one else to talk to,
so I'd be like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
oh, my God, I just made a funny joke.
I'm so funny. - And you're looking at her.
- And, like, Luna, and I'd be like, high five?
And that's where we started the high five.
I can't be high-fiving myself.
- We've waited four years for our stories or justice
or something, right?
I've got four weeks left of something that I've spent
the last four years sitting with and having
to deal with every single day.
I'm afraid to see them and their faces.
I can't imagine what they're gonna sound like and say.
And I'm afraid of that,
especially this last couple days
where I'm sitting with this with my mom
and we're really having to face it.
- Don't be scared.
- I'm trying not to be.
- You got a lot of people that is with you.
Okay?
Even your family from Colombia.
[speaking Spanish]
- [laughs]
- They're with you.
- Hello. How are you? - Good. How are you doing?
- Good. - I'm gonna sit down.
♪ ♪
So our plan for today will be to talk about
what it's gonna be like in the courtroom.
And it is gonna be a little different
because of all the COVID restrictions.
- So you walk in.
The judge will be up top, right?
And so there will be a big table.
It's called counsel table.
And you're drawing it exactly right.
And then we'll take a short break, and then we'll--
Alex Conlon is gonna pretend she's one of the defendants
across from you, okay?
- I think she's gonna be a combination.
- Unlike the deposition,
this is the time to tell your story.
So don't go on for too long, but feel free to, you know,
give as much detail as you want.
Totally normal if you're feeling
nervous at the beginning.
But be yourself.
Ready? - Yes.
- Good morning, Ms. Sines.
- Good morning.
- Could you please introduce yourself to the jury?
- My name is Elizabeth Sines.
- My name is April Muñiz.
You're the jury for me. - There you go. Perfect.
- I am 53 years old.
- I am a student.
- I'm a pastor.
- We are working with people who are
victims of real trauma.
- So when we show you this photo,
I will ask you to identify yourself.
- Some physical, all emotional.
- I am this person with my hands, like, up...
- And it's really important for the case
that they be prepared for what's coming.
And to try to do that in a way that prepares them
but doesn't retraumatize them
is, I think, a difficult balance.
- You okay?
All right.
- I'm going to ask Mr. Spalding to put up
plaintiff's exhibit 3271 and ask if you
can identify that photo.
- I'd like to put up on the screen
plaintiff's exhibit 3204.
- 1692.
- 1908.
- Ms. Sines, do you recognize this photo?
- Yes, I do.
- Okay, let's stop it there. Stop.
What's that, 6:59? - Yes.
- Can you please describe what's going on in that video?
- What happened there is, a group of--
well, I mean, should I say "white supremacists"?
I'm sorry. White supremacists--
- You can say "white supremacists."
- Bashed right through our group with their shields.
- And how did you feel as you watched the car backing up?
- I was certain he was backing up
so that he could
accelerate into us again.
- The plaintiffs obviously have been to hell and back.
But reopening yourself up again after such a trauma
is such a hard thing.
- I should tell you there are several different defendants
who are pro se:
Christopher Cantwell and Richard Spencer.
- There are a lot of defendants in this case.
They don't all have the same lawyer.
And then there are a couple defendants,
very high-profile defendants,
proceeding what's called pro se.
So they're representing themselves.
- So here's the other side.
So you can see that...
- Our clients need to be prepared to be cross-examined
by the actual defendants that committed the hateful,
violent acts against them.
- Are you feeling nervous about it?
- I'm more nervous in the context of the long term.
Like, it's not unrealistic that somebody would retaliate.
- [exhales heavily]
The bottom of my feet are sweating.
I don't think that's ever happened before.
I was, like, super calm all day.
And then on the drive over here, I had to, like,
turn the music off, and I can feel my--
it's not that I'm nervous to be here.
I've met most of the staff before.
But it's just, I know I'm gonna have
to hash out what happened.
It's like, I know what to expect but also not
what the defendants' counsel might ask me.
Yeah, I'm ready to get it over with.
I don't want to cry.
I don't want them to make me cry.
♪ ♪
I actually learned about the rally
couple weeks before August 12th.
We were talking about it with Heather, you know, like,
Heather, are you gonna go?
Are we gonna go?
And she said, you know, I want to go.
I just--I don't--
I feel like somebody's gonna do something stupid
and somebody's gonna die.
But this is important.
Like, we're gonna speak up.
We're gonna make sure our voice is heard.
We're gonna resist.
♪ ♪
August 12th, it was a hot day.
It was, you know, four of us--me, Heather,
Marcus, and Courtney-- that all went together
and walked around.
[indistinct chatter]
When we got with the group on the street--
so what's now Heather Heyer Way--
it was more of a celebration, clowns in the street,
people hugging, handing out water,
kind of, like, reclaiming Charlottesville
and what we knew they were coming to kind of destroy.
It was, you know, chanting, happiness, and then boom.
[people screaming]
Marcus!
I was actually recording.
And I wouldn't have recorded for as long
as I did if my hand wasn't shaking so bad.
And then when I, you know, found Marcus,
then of course, you know, it's like,
all right, where's Heather?
♪ ♪
Flash-forward to the hospital.
I had a couple of scrapes, some injuries,
you know, to my side.
But I didn't think about it.
You know, people were literally bleeding,
and Marcus' leg was broken.
And I'm like, I'm fine.
You know, I grew up with three brothers.
Like, I can take a hit.
I'm fine.
A guy that was in the room, he asked me, he said, hey,
did you hear that girl died?
And I'm like, who?
And he said, the big girl.
And Heather would tell you herself, you know,
Heather's not a small girl.
But immediately I'm like, who was she?
Was she wearing black?
Did she have a ponytail?
And he was like-- he kind of got taken aback.
He was like, I--
I don't know, I don't know.
An officer came, took me in a room.
And he's like, I just want to tell you,
your friend Heather--
and I said, yes.
And he said, she's the one that passed away.
And I immediately dropped to my knees,
like, from the chair, dropped to my knees.
And I mean, I've never--
[clicks tongue, sighs]
I've never had someone that's--
most people haven't-- that's standing next to--
you were literally just with them, that died.
Nothing would ever bring Heather back,
but we want them to be responsible for what they
organized and what they did.
- So this is our subject here.
So for two days in a row, our same subject
wearing the same outfit.
- This is today? - This is today.
- All right, so tomorrow let's just put a recon team on him
and see where he goes afterwards.
I don't want to have a situation where we're
confronting somebody for nothing here,
'cause that's the exact opposite of what we're
trying to do in this town.
- Okay, so I'll put this out in an email to our--
our lead.
- Thanks. - Thank you.
- We've gotten information about security issues
that have arisen.
There have been reports of white supremacist groups
driving by our hotel, honking, things like that.
This is, um...
It was a long, stressful night.
And I dealt with it by eating my feelings.
- So it'll be April of 2021...
♪ ♪
- Which one of those?
- I'm taking mine and Alex's.
- Okay. - She's gonna come with me.
You have to hand them to each person.
- I'll do it.
- And you can just tell them up there what it is.
- Yeah, sure.
- We start tomorrow.
And that'll be jury selection.
Jury selection is a gigantic variable in every case
but I think particularly in this one.
This issue is obviously an issue that people have
very, very strong feelings about.
And so you have to try to suss out,
are you gonna be a juror that is gonna be
open-minded to the idea
that people planned a racially motivated violent rally?
The most critical part of this trial is jury selection.
- Okay, I'm assembled here now.
- Come in, post red direct 0814.
- If you need me to protect you at all--
- Very good. [laughter]
- Hey, Robbie, I wanted you to meet Wood anyway.
- Hey, Wood. Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you too. - Oh, whoa.
You're bigger than two of me.
[laughter]
Definitely two of Karen.
- Okay.
- We're good to go.
♪ ♪
- Would you please raise your right hands?
- Jury selection is actually really jury deselection.
Each side has a certain amount of peremptory strikes.
And once you use those, you're left with whoever's left.
- We're going through the cause process right now
to see whether or not a juror
is qualified to sit on the jury.
And so I'm getting updates for each one.
- I think the thing that's been most surprising to me
is how many people are
legitimately concerned about racism against white people.
- Literal text says, "It's a bit of a mess right now."
- The defendants used a peremptory strike
on the first Black juror they had an opportunity to strike.
When asked to justify that,
the defendants said things like,
his answers were too perfect.
They didn't like the way he looked at them.
And so we challenged that strike under Batson.
- A Batson challenge is when you challenge a strike
because you believe it was brought for reasons that are
unconstitutional, for example, a strike
based on somebody's race.
The way that I've described it is feeling
like there was an anvil on my chest for three days.
There was no more important decisions that we made
than during jury selection.
And, you know, it was like being
in a knife fight about race
with white supremacists for three days.
And by the book.
I'm convinced that he was in his own mind...
- I'm a professional talk show host.
- Ugh.
Oh, my God.
That judge is gonna give me a hard time.
The backtrack--oh, my God.
So we have a jury of 12.
The two jurors we got today were both
really intelligent guys, really good.
- I'm like, so tired, I can't even articulate sentences.
Everyone did an amazing job. - Amazing job.
On Batson, guys, it's-- we didn't win it,
but we did really, really well.
- We--we stood up for what's important.
- We stood up, but we're gonna have a continuing issue.
I think it was kind of chaos in the courtroom
and the pro se defendants, but openings tomorrow.
And then we start with our first witness.
[indistinct chatter]
♪ ♪
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
our plaintiffs have waited four long years for this day.
In that time, they've tried to move forward with their lives
as best they can.
But no matter what they do,
they continue to carry with them
the pain and trauma of what they experienced
on August 11 and August 12, 2017.
That's why you are here, so that a jury of their peers
can finally hear the truth
about what happened on those two days.
- It is the defendants' own communications in this case
that are going to show you that the violence
of August 11th and 12th was no accident.
The defendants planned for violence,
they executed violence,
and they celebrated and owned the violence after the fact.
- Can I read you something that Cantwell said
at the end of his opening?
"When this is over, I hope you all become die-hard fans
and together, we can try and save this country."
- Good luck.
♪ ♪
- This Unite the Right event is going to be huge.
We need to do everything by the book
so that our people don't get into legal trouble.
We want to be able to express ourselves
and look like the good guys.
- Oh, absolutely.
He was a revolutionary.
We are too.
- Do we have any videos of Kessler talking
that we haven't looked at?
- There he is.
- Oh, there he is. - Yeah.
- This kind of shows, like, he's not that important.
Because when Spencer walks in, everyone just turns.
- Makes us think about who said he'd meet you here today?
♪ ♪
- Jason Kessler was really the key organizer
to the conspiracy.
He reached out to Richard Spencer.
He knew that if he had Spencer's star power,
he could build an army for his battle of Charlottesville.
He also reached out to others,
including Matthew Heimbach, who's the leader
of the Traditionalist Worker Party.
♪ ♪
- I want to go over the phone records.
- Yeah.
- June 13th, it's Cantwell, Michael Hill,
Derrick Davis, who's TWP,
Kline, Damigo, Dennis Durham, who's League of the South.
So basically within, like...
- Also Monroe.
- You know, one afternoon evening, he--
he's--calls almost everybody associated
with this conspiracy.
Mr. Kessler, these are your phone calls between May 24th
and August 12th with defendant Richard Spencer.
- So specifically you spoke to Mr. Cantwell 13 times.
Starting on August 7th of 2017,
you spoke to Mr. Cantwell every single day.
- Isn't it true, Mr. Cantwell, that you specifically advocate
violence on radical agenda?
- I advocate for people to defend themselves.
- Well, isn't it true that you advocate violence?
- I don't-- I don't know.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I don't--
I don't agree with that assessment, no.
Everybody is terrified to talk about violence at all, right?
"I do not advocate violence."
Everybody has to, like, make that disclaimer or whatever.
I'm not making that disclaimer, okay?
I'm like, we're gonna have to fucking kill these people,
all right?
And we are here to do it in a manner which
serves the purpose at hand.
- This is from our security report.
Among other things, they do, like, a word cloud of chatter
from white supremacists on the internet.
The larger words are more frequently used
than the smaller words.
- Much of the planning happened on Discord.
There were channels within the Discord server
for each group that attended.
There were channels where they could talk about
what the transportation was going to be,
where they could talk about Virginia state law
so they could plan to make this look like self-defense.
There were channels about what tools and implements to bring.
So there were channels sort of for planning every aspect
of this event, from the most nefarious
to the completely mundane
what are we gonna bring to eat for lunch,
and things like this.
♪ ♪
- I mean, I think what we would say is, there--
there are--there's bombshell after bombshell.
I found truly jaw-dropping communications
that really underscored our theory of the case.
♪ ♪
- You saw the possibility of violence
by large groups of people associated
with the Unite the Right rally, isn't that right?
- I saw the violence as coming from the antifa side
and that we needed to be able to defend ourselves.
crowd: We don't want a white space.
- Antifa is a loosely defined group that is against fascism.
And so the defendants tried to claim
that any violence that occurred was in defense
of antifa's aggression.
- That's bogus no matter what.
Going all the way back to the spring from the Discord chats,
there's a lot of talk in there about provoking Jews
or provoking "antifa."
So they swing first so that these guys
can then crush them.
That's what they intended all along.
♪ ♪
- One of the tactics of the conspiracy
was this idea that if protesters are in your way,
you can run them over.
- Tyrone writes, "Sure would be nice."
And underneath is a photograph of a modified tractor
that says, "Introducing John Deere's
new multi-lane protester digester," right?
- That appears to be the image.
- And that was posted by Tyrone, right?
- It appears so.
- It wasn't some sort of freak accident
where this car ran into people.
This was part of the overall conspiracy,
where the defendants actually believed
that if somebody was in our way,
it was our right to just run them down.
- Did you have a conversation about whether it was legal
to run over counterprotesters in Virginia
prior to Unite the Right?
- I don't recall any such conversations,
but I know that sort of thing because people had been
blocking roadways for... well, years,
but generally speaking, they started that tactic
with the Trump rallies.
And that had been kind of an open question.
Hence why I believe the state of North Carolina
deemed it appropriate when people were menacing people
by harassing their vehicles,
to allow people to escape danger.
♪ ♪
[blow dryer whirring]
- I'm just shaky today.
That look right? - I think it does.
♪ ♪
crowd: Black lives matter.
- We weren't there for long before they arrived.
We just linked arms and held hands and started to sing.
I just heard loudness, almost like thunder...
crowd: You will not replace us.
Jews will not replace us.
- This is easy! - Look at this.
[laughs] Beautiful!
- Once they started to surround us,
they were kind of like--
came directly at Devin and I.
It felt like hundreds of people angry,
upset, screaming, yelling.
It happened so quickly.
They surrounded us so quickly.
[indistinct yelling]
- At any point, Ms. Romero, did you consider
leaving where you were at the base of the statue?
- Absolutely, absolutely.
I wanted to escape, run away.
There was literally--there was no way that I could do that.
- Yeah. Move, bitch!
[indistinct yelling]
- No, no, no, no.
- Shit, oh, shit. - Back up, back up, back up.
- We're gonna get pinned.
Come on, brother. Go right there.
[indistinct yelling]
[crowd roaring]
- It gives me, like, cold chills
to hear the trembling in her voice,
to know that I'm gonna have to go up there
and do the same thing.
You think you can prepare for it,
but you can't, no matter how much you watch the videos
or hear the stories.
[indistinct chatter]
- Thanks. - Mm-hmm.
- That's a negative IKB call.
♪ ♪
- An attorney representing the National Socialist movement
says the plaintiffs' case is based on emotion and vengeance
but not evidence.
- Some of the white supremacists
are representing themselves and using
the witness stand as a soapbox,
questioning the victims.
Christopher Cantwell has used the trial as a platform
to air conspiracy theories.
He's used cross-examinations to badger witnesses
and accuse plaintiffs of being antifa.
- This speaks to how some defendants don't seem
to take this case seriously.
♪ ♪
- Natalie Romero and Devin Willis,
I think it's fair to say, were tortured by the defendants
in terms of being cross-examined by them.
For Devin, which is really the most upsetting,
he was cross-examined for five hours.
- Natalie in particular was so compelling.
And she's--I don't even know if she's 5 feet tall
and one of the people who has, I think,
the most serious injuries of all the plaintiffs.
And you got pepper sprayed.
You got maced.
You got tear-gassed.
You got hands put all over you.
- I think it was incredibly important for the jury to hear
what these guys were and how they had no problem
revictimizing them in their cross-examinations.
- [whispering indistinctly]
And you should do that combined with this
from Damigo to Casey.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You should have a separate section on, like, once we--
- After the events of August 11th and 12th,
there's a flurry of communications
where Kessler is urging Kline to delete the Discord.
You write...
- This is a private Discord message to you
from August 14th,
in which this person says,
"The Charlottesville server needs to be deleted.
"It's compromised and has people talking
about committing violence."
In your tweet, Mr. Kessler, you say...
- It was a great success, and we're gonna do it again.
This was--
- I'm finalizing the cross for Spencer.
And I need to be doing it right now because he's likely
to be called in the next day or two.
It could be sort of any moment now.
Fundamentally in this case,
we need to prove that the defendants conspired
to commit racially motivated violence.
And in order to do that, you need to elicit
evidence about their views.
And that can be difficult when faced with somebody
who obviously doesn't want to admit
what their actual intentions are.
- No, I don't.
- Richard Spencer has tried to put a polish
on extreme hatred and racism.
- I think what's very important is to do
what I can to knock that polish off.
- Yes, I have used that term in private company
in my life, yes.
- My job in examining Spencer is to let people see
that he is not who he says he is.
His views are not just racist, but they are violent,
which is the key to our case.
- I'm--I'm sure I've heard him say that.
But that--you know, a lot of--you have
to understand, particularly with the younger people,
some of these statements like that
are almost like the equivalent of memes.
- We knew going in that we needed to have experts
translate for the jury the way these guys speak,
what they say, and what it really means.
What we're gonna do today is, we're gonna kind of do
a walk-through of how I see the testimony going.
So that's the first section, section one.
- Okay, sounds good.
- Professor Lipstadt, all--
you know, do you swear to tell the whole truth, yada yada?
We're gonna put up a video you should be able to see.
Let's take a look at tab three.
- Some people are confused by the fact
that anti-Semitism plays such a part in this trial.
'Cause after all, this is a trial of white nationalists,
white supremacists.
So how did we get to the Jews?
It's about white replacement theory,
and it is that there is a plan afoot
to destroy cultures that are white
and to flood these countries with Black people,
with brown people, with Muslims.
But the theory also goes on to say
that these people are not as capable, as smart,
as industrious as we are.
So there must be someone behind the scenes
who is making this happen.
It has to be someone with the financial ability,
someone with the smarts,
and someone who knows how to operate behind the scenes
and never be caught.
And that is the template for anti-Semitism.
You will not replace us. Who's the "you"?
Who were they talking about?
They weren't talking about the Christian Virginians
standing on the thing thinking who these people are.
Who is gonna replace them?
And then they slipped into "Jews will not replace us."
It is a conspiracy theory.
And essentially it is a theory that binds together
many people on the far right
and sometimes the not-so-far right.
- I'm not against the immigrants.
I just am for Americans.
And nobody cares about them.
It's like, shut up. You're dying.
We're gonna replace you.
- Democrats want to replace you, the American voters,
with newly amnestied citizens.
- It's a flat-out invasion.
We are being overwhelmed
every day.
- The white supremacists are American citizens.
The illegal immigrants are people who shouldn't be here.
- If the public can understand that these were not just
a bunch of crazies who came to this beautiful town
of Charlottesville and did some ugly things
but there was no bigger message,
what I'm saying is, yes, there was.
And yes, there is.
This is not just about what was in mid-August 2017.
This is a lot about what will be in America
for many decades to come.
- No, they're about sending a message.
- These are text messages that you
exchanged with Mr. Cantwell.
And Mr. Cantwell says to you,
"I'm willing to risk a lot for our cause,
"including violence and incarceration,
"but I want to coordinate and make sure
it's worth it to our cause."
And you say, "It's worth it. At least for me."
Is this an email, Mr. Spencer, that was sent
from your email address to your followers?
- Yes, very well-written.
♪ ♪
- And you're replying to a tweet that says...
♪ ♪
- The night of August 12th,
when he felt that things had gone south
and everything had kind of been shut down by the police
after Heather Heyer was murdered
and they weren't able to kind of rally people
the way he had planned, he was livid.
And we have this tape of him.
- Yeah, that's right.
- We have them.
♪ ♪
- Look, I'm not known for my patience.
So in any case, any trial I've ever done,
this is not my favorite part.
I hate waiting for the jury.
And honestly I think, like all of us, I'm tired.
I think we all understood intellectually
what this case was about.
But I think seeing six-plus hours a day this kind of--
I don't even know how to put it--waterfall,
river, roaring river
of hatred and vitriol that's treated
like it's normal, for me is psychologically
really, really hard to bear.
I think that's--would be a fair way to put it.
- The jury's job is to really assess
the evidence without regard to what's
happening outside of court.
And they're supposed to do it without regard
to kind of what it means for the moment or the country.
It's impossible to get a sense of where they're leaning.
I still feel good about the case that we tried.
And I hope the jury gets it right.
- The question is not making me feel
particularly good overall.
- Yeah. - The--
- The question the jury asked about the violence?
- Yeah, the "are words violent?"
And it's like, well, that was--
that was the whole fucking trial.
I mean, like, what a question.
- I know.
You'd think if the jury was gonna be debating
the big questions like this,
they would have done it earlier on.
- Yeah.
- Like, I don't give a shit if they're, like--
for example, like, they don't like me, you know what I mean,
so they want to not give me anything.
That's completely fine as long as they
award damages for everyone else.
- The thing that you're most concerned about
and I think we're all most concerned about
is that they are found guilty of the charge...
- Yeah. - Es, plural.
♪ ♪
[people cheering]
- We did it.
- Oh, man.
- [sobs]
♪ ♪
- Thank you all. Well done.
Thank you.
- [squeals, laughs]
[sighs]
♪ ♪
- Yay! - Yay!
[cheers and applause]
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- No, everyone's pretty emotional over here.
I'm gonna show you--
I'm gonna show you some emotions.
They're right there.
- Natalie. Natalie.
- So there's--don't--
[laughter]
- Mwah. - Mwah.
- So they were found liable for conspiring
under Virginia state law.
The only thing that they were not found liable for
is the two federal claims that we brought.
We feel gratitude.
- I have a migraine from...
- Robbie feels like she has a migraine.
- The adrenaline drop.
- But collectively we feel very--
we feel really grateful.
This is beyond imagination, how great this is.
- I need to talk to you.
- [laughs] - Classic.
- Incredible lawyer.
- Fighting machine. - Absolutely.
- Come here. - Holy shit is right.
- Come on, right here.
- Yeah!
- Right here.
- Short one in the middle.
- Yes.
♪ ♪
- When I brought the case, I hoped that there never
would be again this kind of armed, organized,
racially motivated conspiracy.
Can someone throw me a pad?
Since Charlottesville, there have been many.
I saw it as the end point,
and in certain ways, it was only the beginning.
- The host has arrived.
Joining conference.
- But I think we did help to expose who these people
and groups really are, what they think,
and what they're willing to do.
♪ ♪
[bright tone]