Federal Prosecutors Use Video from Right-Wing Trolls as “Evidence” Against J20 Defendants

December 4, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The trial of six people arrested last January 20 during a defiant protest against Donald Trump’s inauguration began in federal court in Washington, D.C. on November 20. Among the six are two medics and one journalist. These are the first of 200 defendants, many facing an outrageous 60 years in jail, known as the J20 Defendants. In a move that shows just how much this trial represents an escalation of fascist repression, federal prosecutors presented a video into evidence against the defendants that was provided by Project Veritas. Only a few days before this, this same dangerous, far-right group was caught attempting to carry out an undercover “sting” operation against the Washington Post in an attempt to discredit the allegations by women against Roy Moore written about in the Post.

Project Veritas and its founder, James O'Keefe, are well known for carrying out secret audio and video recordings of conversations, then deliberately editing them in order to misrepresent what is being said in conversations. They have attempted to smear Planned Parenthood in the past. The prosecutors in the J20 trial had earlier presented a video provided to them by the Oath Keepers, a neo-fascist militia group. James Anderson of It's Going Down website told the Guardian, “The fact that they have to fall back on using these far-right trolls, which are widely discredited, not only speaks to the illegitimacy of their case, but also a fundamental relationship between the Trump administration and the alt-right."

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