Charlottesville Counterprotester Sues InfoWars And Other Far-Right Media Figures For Defamation
A Virginia man who was part of the counterprotest at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last year
is suing conspiracy site InfoWars, its founder
Alex Jones and a number of other far-right media figures for defamation.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia on behalf of
Brennan Gilmore Tuesday. Besides Jones and InfoWars, Gilmore is also naming former GOP Congressman
Allen West, Gateway Pundit owner
Jim Hoft, InfoWars reporter
Lee Ann McAdoo, right-wing reporter
Lee Stranahan and bloggers
Derrick Wilburn and
Scott Creighton as defendants.
Gilmore’s lawsuit alleges that all parties defamed him by spreading “fake news” and conspiracy stories that claimed he was in the middle of a George Soros-funded leftist plot to stage the Charlottesville attack that killed one counterprotester and injured dozens of others. Gilmore was on the scene and shot video when neo-Nazi
James Fields purposely rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. After Gilmore tweeted the video out, he appeared in numerous television interviews to discuss the tragedy.
Following his press appearances,
InfoWars and others published pieces purporting to show Gilmore was involved in a left-wing false flag operation in Charlottesville, citing his work for the State Department and Democratic politics. Gilmore responded to the conspiratorial allegations
in a Politico op-ed last summer, highlighting how he had become “fake news.”
In a statement on his lawsuit obtained by The Hill, Gilmore said the “defendants thrive by inciting devastating real-world consequences with the propaganda and lies they publish as ‘news,’” adding that he’s asking the court to “hold them responsible for the personal and professional damage their lies have caused me, and, more importantly, to deter them from repeating this dangerous pattern of defamation and intimidation.”
Meanwhile, Jones told
The Hill that the lawsuit was full of, you guessed it, fake news.
“Fake quotes of articles that don’t exist, fake headlines of videos that don’t exist,” Jones claimed, further stating that the “lawsuits are all complete frauds” because “it’s all Democratic party lawyers.”
