Nobody can say they didn’t see this coming: A group of protesters who claim they were assaulted at a Donald Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky, last month are suing Trump – along with his presidential campaign, a white nationalist Trump supporter and two other men who attended the rally -- for assault, incitement to violence and various other charges.
The suit was filed in Jefferson County circuit court by Kashiya Nwanguma, Molly Shah and Henry Brousseau, three protesters who were physically removed from the rally at the instruction of Trump himself, speaking from the podium.
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In addition to Trump and his campaign, the suit names Matthew John Heimbach, a 25-year-old white nationalist activist who, among other things, has been banned from entering the United Kingdom because of his racist views and “support of violence,” as well as 75-year-old Alvin Bamberger.
The suit was filed on Thursday, just days after police in Jupiter, Florida, formally charged Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski with battery for manhandling a reporter following a Trump press conference in March.
The complaint alleges that Heimbach, Bamberger and a third unnamed individual pushed, punched and verbally abused the three protesters while forcing them out of the event.
The complaint says that Trump himself and his campaign apparatus are in part responsible for the violence at his rallies. “Donald J. Trump … has decided to break with American tradition and the rule of law by inciting his supporters to physically attack protesters at his rallies and campaign appearances. Worse still, these attacks often carry with them the blatant stamp of racism, religious intolerance, misogyny, or any combination of the three.”
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The complaint details Trump’s well-documented history of encouraging violence against protesters, and even offering to pay the legal fees of any who are charged as a result of injuring them.
While telling his supporters to remove the protesters, Trump said “Don’t hurt ‘em,” but at the same time made it clear that wasn’t his real preference in the matter by adding, “If I say ‘go get ‘em’ I get in trouble with the press, the most dishonest human beings in the world.”
As he’s done in the past, Trump also expressed his longing for the days when violence at a political rally was socially acceptable.
“In the old days, which isn’t so long ago, when we were less politically correct, that kind of stuff wouldn’t have happened.”
