Thomas: I Was There at Charlottesville

On Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017, two state troopers—pilot Lt. H. Jay Cullen, 48, and trooper-pilot Berke M.M. Bates, 40—and one counterprotester, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, lost their lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hundreds more were injured in the aftermath of dueling rallies. One rally took place in a park at the corner of Market and Fourth streets in Charlottesville, and the other occurred on Market Street, in protest of the first.

In February of that year, I became aware of a group that espoused no conservative principles beyond wanting then Charlottesville Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy to lose his seat. I even had several heated discussions with the organizer of the so-called “Unite the Right” rally because he thought I was infringing his First Amendment rights by not hosting him on my popular morning radio show.

That Saturday morning in August, while I stood in the crowd in the intersection trying to feed news back to my station, I watched David Duke walk past me. Yes, that David Duke. I was about to become aware of what tear gas feels like, but it was OK because I felt vindicated. This was no bunch of true conservatives.

Now we learn that a person identified as “F-37” by the Department of Justice in their indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was the “transportation coordinator” for the “Unite the Right” team. SPLC claims they were paid $270,000 to “sing” (as police call testifying against your co-conspirators) or were they “composing” (when there was no song to “sing”).

A researcher called “Data Republican” from Pennsylvania has posts from the website Discord, attributed to the transportation coordinator, warning of crowds that might try to block the streets. And if that were to happen, the message was to “run them down.” The indictment states these postings were made “under the supervision of the SPLC.”

Tuesday, lawyers for the Southern Poverty Law Center claimed that “the government was aware of their activities.”

Since this was a criminal style sting operation, the logical conclusion would be that the FBI might be involved. At the time the rally took place, the newly named FBI director was Christopher Wray. From May until then, the acting director was Andrew McCabe. And as the “Unite the Right” folks were building their team in the spring of that year, it was a fellow named James Comey. Those folks would never be involved in setting up anything that would make President Donald Trump look bad, would they?