Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes sues Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center
Gavin McInnes, conservative provocateur and talk show host best known as the founder of the far-right fraternal organization known as the Proud Boys, on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for damages after the group designated his work as hate speech. In a statement released after the filing, McInnes said, “They have harassed me, my family, and my friends to a level of tortious interference that goes well into sabotage.” McInnes, a Canadian immigrant and comedian, claims he is an “avowed and vocal opponent of discrimination based on race, religion or sexual preference, and of ideologies and movements espousing extremism, nationalism and white supremacy.” In a YouTube statement published November 21, 2018 McInnes formally stepped away from the Proud Boys group and gave an extensive background of their history. The video description includes this statement, “As of today, November 21st, 2018, I am officially disassociating myself from the Proud Boys, in all capacities, forever. I quit.” In the taped statement, he asserts the mainstream media has repeatedly mischaracterized the purpose of the group as well as the members beliefs. In an interview with AL.Today a spokesman for McInnes described the group saying of members of the Proud Boys, “They share a common world view, they’re pro-western values, but don’t all share the same political beliefs and have never been a hate group.” McInnes claims the SPLC has given him a “Hate Designation,” a means by which it identifies activists, political figures and groups as targets that disagree with their own ideologies and designates them as “extremists,” “white supremacists,” and “hate groups” in order to “achieve its goals and those of its donors.” The 70-page complaint was electronically filed early evening Sunday in the Middle District of Alabama outlining defamation and other tortious acts resulting in reputation and economic damages. In the suit, McInnes says the SPLC is “defaming him by use of the SPLC Hate Designations, and publishing other false, damaging and defamatory statements about him.” McInnes is being represented by noted First Amendment attorney Ron Coleman of Mandelbaum Salsburg P.C. and Baron Coleman of the Baron Coleman Law Firm. Attorney Ron Coleman emphasized the significance of the case in relation of the growing partisan divide and practice of censorship by stating, “[t]his lawsuit has implications beyond Gavin McInnes because we’re challenging the use of deplatforming and defunding to privately censor speech. If we can’t stop this phenomenon now, the First Amendment will be rendered meaningless as dissent is silenced through private actors such as SPLC and its allies.” Montgomery-based attorney Baron Coleman noting, “I wasn’t familiar with Gavin or his work prior to beginning work on this case. But there is absolutely zero excuse in America for systematically targeting someone for complete personal and financial destruction because they support a different politician or different set of political beliefs. I wouldn’t represent a racist or an anti-semite. And Gavin is neither. And the most horrific part of this entire ordeal is that the SPLC knows Gavin isn’t a racist or anti-semite or anything else they’ve labeled him. Rather, he supports a different slate of politicians with his satire and wit, and the SPLC would rather destroy him than have him out there convincing other people to see politics his way.” For those interested in donating to McInnes’s legal defense fund it can be found at defendgavin.com Read the lawsuit below:
Spencer Collier lists AL.com’s John Archibald passenger day of accident on witness list in Robert Bentley case
Last week, a witness list was released in an ongoing defamation lawsuit filed against former-Gov. Robert Bentley by his former law enforcement chief Spencer Collier. Collier, who is currently the Selma police chief, sued Bentley in 2016. He contends the former Governor wrongfully fired him in March 2016 as secretary of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) and then tried to discredit him with a sham state investigation. Flash forward to August 2017 and Collier was injured in a two vehicle car crash on Hwy 80 in Montgomery County that led to an investigation, since at the time of the crash Collier was driving an unmarked police SUV issued to him by the city of Selma. Ultimately Collier was cleared of any wrong-doing. After months of coverage on the suit, Alabama Today was tipped off this week to one glaring omission from all of the coverage written thus far: nestled 11 pages deep in a 12 page document, is one key fact: AL.com’s John Archibald was in the with Spencer the day of the wreck. “If any Defendant makes Collier’s wreck of August 14, 2017, an issue, Collier reserves the right to call any witness who has information of Collier’s condition on the day of the wreck including Selma Police Officers, the Selma PD Dispatcher, the Custodian of Records for the Selma PD and al.com columnist John Archibald who rode with Collier on the day of the wreck,” reads the subpoena. According to WSFA-12 the crash report revealed at around 7:45 p.m.: Collier’s vehicle was traveling east on U.S. 80 when it left the roadway, re-entered, then over corrected. Collier’s vehicle then began spinning before crossing the median and striking a second vehicle. The reports indicate Collier told investigators he did not remember anything about the crash or the events leading up to it. The driver of the second vehicle told investigators that when he realized Collier’s vehicle was starting to the cross the median, he hit his brakes and tried to take evasive action to avoid the collision. The report also shows investigators took a blood sample from Collier and submitted it to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. In dozens of articles about the crash — Times Daily, Lagniappe Mobile, Selma Times Journal, WSFA-12, Montgomery Advertiser, Decatur Daily, Alabama News Net — we found no mention of Archibald being in the car with Collier that day. In fact, AL.com, who usually doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to covering everything happening in the state, did not cover the accident whatsoever. Out of 810 articles that mention Collier, there’s not a single one that talks about the car crash where one of their writers, who also happens to now be a Pulitzer Prize winner, was with Collier some time prior to the wreck. Here’s where things get interesting. While the crash is seemingly unrelated to Collier’s firing and subsequent lawsuit, the toxicology report also appears to significant to Bentley in the suit with Collier. In December 2017, the former Governor attempted to subpoena the reports from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences (ADFS). In addition to the toxicology results, Bentley also subpoenaed all documents related to the wreck and “any and all communications related to your investigation into Collier’s car accident… including without limitation any internal communications.” Archibald has further clarified in a tweet to Alabama Today that he was not in the car with Collier at the time of the accident, but rather with him earlier in the day. “Are you saying I was a passenger in Collier’s wreck? I was not. We filmed him in his cop car earlier in the day,” tweeted Archibald. Are you saying I was a passenger in Collier’s wreck? I was not. We filmed him in his cop car earlier in the day. — John Archibald (@JohnArchibald) January 30, 2019 See the full subpoena below: *Headline and article have been updated to reflect John Archibald were not in the wreck together. Rather Archibald was a passenger in Collier’s car that day.
Roy Moore sues Highway 31 Super PAC over negative campaign ads
Failed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore has filed a defamation lawsuit against a super PAC, claiming the campaign ads that ran during the Alabama U.S. Senate special election in December damaged his reputation. Melissa Isaak, Moore’s attorney, said the Highway 31 Super PAC ran widespread defamatory and misleading ads during the 2017 race, which doubled-down on accusations of sexual misconduct that surfaced against Moore during the campaign. The suit alleges Highway 31 ran the “false” ads and “intentionally or recklessly failed to confirm the accuracy” of them. “Despite knowing that the content was false or in reckless disregard thereof each one of (the defendants) did in fact run advertisements that contained false and defaming material,” the complaint reads. Moore and his attorney announced the lawsuit during a press conference on Wednesday. “The Moore’s have every intention of fighting back,” said Isaak said during the press conference with Moore and his wife, Kayla. In November, The Washington Post published a bombshell report with the accounts of Corfman, Gibson, and one other woman who claimed Moore sexually pursued them when he was in his 30s and they were in their teens. Moore previously filed an earlier defamation suit in April when he sued some of the women who made accusations against him — Marjorie Leigh Corfman, Debbie Wesson Gibson, Beverly Young Nelson, Tina Turner Johnson, and other “unknown” defendants — for causing “irrevocable damage” to his reputation “that affected the outcome of the Senate election in December 2017.” Watch Moore’s press conference announcing the lawsuit below:
SPLC apologizes, pays $3.3M to Islamic reformer it wrongly labeled ‘anti-Muslim extremist’
The Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Monday announced a settlement agreement with Islamic reformer Maajid Nawaz and his organization, the Quilliam Foundation, for wrongly including them on a now-deleted list of “anti-Muslim extremists.” The list, A Journalist’s Manual: Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists, was published as a resource for journalists in 2016 to help identify “anti-Muslim extremists.” Nawaz, a current Muslim and a former Islamist, threatened to sue the SPLC for defamation for wrongly accusing him of being an extremist. Seeing has how they had no path to win in court, the SPLC admitted their error in inclusion and agreed to pay Nawaz and Quilliam $3.375 million “to fund their work to fight anti-Muslim bigotry and extremism.” “Since we published the Field Guide, we have taken the time to do more research and have consulted with human rights advocates we respect,” SPLC president Richard Cohen said in a statement. “We’ve found that Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam have made valuable and important contributions to public discourse, including by promoting pluralism and condemning both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism.” Cohen said the SPLC will look to their insurance carrier to cover the cost of the settlement. “It was the right thing to do in light of our mistake and the right thing to do in light of the growing prejudice against the Muslim community on both sides of the Atlantic,” he added. Watch Cohen’s video statement below:
