Witness sues Infowars for claiming he had role in Charlottesville protester's death

Rachel Weiner

The Washington Post

March 13, 2018 02:52 pm

A man who recorded video of a car plowing into a crowd of protesters during last year's neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, is now suing right-wing conspiracy theorists who claimed he was an undercover CIA officer who helped stage the deadly attack.

Brennan Gilmore, a Foreign Service officer and bluegrass musician, says he hopes to take Alex Jones, who founded the website Infowars, and six others to trial in Virginia federal court for inspiring death threats and harassment.

More broadly, he and his attorneys from the Georgetown Law Civil Rights Clinic hope to show that the First Amendment does not protect Jones and others whose sensational falsehoods have inspired vicious responses.

"We're reallyencouraging people to "stay home."

The video was widely viewed; Gilmore was repeatedly interviewed. Then the online attacks began. Gilmore could not have simply caught the moment on video by accident, Jones and the others concluded. Given his work for the State Department and his past job as chief of staff for former congressman Tom Perriello, they claimed, he must be working for the CIA to undermine President Donald Trump.

Lee Stranahan, a former writer for Breitbart, appeared in a video on the Infowars website calling Heyer a willing "martyr" whose death was arranged to help provoke a coup.

Among the other defendants are Jim Hoft, who on his blog Gateway Pundit called Gilmore a "deep-state shill," and former Florida congressman Allen West, who posted an article on his website saying