This has just been shown, so there will eventually be journalistic follow-ups and certainly fits with the activities of Russian attempts to foment civil unrest elsewhere in the US including the attempt to pit right and left activist groups against each other using FB. Tom Garrett(R) represents VA’s 5th District
Washington (CNN)Republican Rep. Tom Garrett said Saturday that he was told during a briefing with the FBI director that Russian meddling played in a role in "fomenting the flames of what happened in Charlottesville," Virginia, one year ago, when a white nationalist rally turned violent and resulted in the death of a counter-protester.
"I sat in a closed session briefing probably two months ago about Charlottesville with the director of the FBI, amongst others, and asked if Russian inter-meddling had to do with fomenting the flames of what happened in Charlottesville. I was told yes, it did," Garrett told CNN's Ryan Nobles on "Newsroom." The congressman from Virginia said he asked during the briefing if the information was classified and was told it is not.
Garrett, a member of the House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees, said that Russian interference is "seeking to pit Americans against Americans to undermine confidence in Western-style democracies."
Referring to Russia, the congressman said, "They use events like this divisive racial fight ... and this is the sort of thing they do. As a member of Homeland Security, that's what scares me most, that Americans will be pitted against Americans over real differences, but that are minimal in the grand scheme of things. We are an American family of brothers and sisters regardless of religion and race, and we need to focus on that."
Jason Kessler, one of the primary organizers of last year’s rally, gave up his lawsuit against Charlottesville last week after the city had previously denied his permit to host another event. Kessler said he would instead be focusing on his Washington rally, set to take place less than a three-hour drive from Charlottesville.
Numerous anti-racism protests are scheduled to take place in Charlottesville over the weekend.
Last year’s August 11 Unite the Right rally brought out hundreds of neo-Nazis, alt-right groups and Klu Klux Klan members, many of them engaging in violent clashes with counter-protesters while armed. Three people ultimately died, including one woman who was killed after 21-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. allegedly plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing the woman and injuring dozens more. At another point, a video showed a white nationalist shooting a gun at counterprotesters' feet.
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From the looks of it, the Nazis lost the battle of Charlottesville. After all, Donald Trump’s handling of the aftermath of the rally, in which he said there were “very fine people” on both sides of the protest, drew bipartisan condemnation. The attempted rebranding of white nationalism as the genteel and technologically savvy alt-right failed, the marketing campaign faltering after the murder of the counter-protester Heather Heyer and the attempted murder of several others revealed to the nation the logical conclusion of alt-right beliefs and arguments. The bloody outcome of that day foiled the white nationalists’ attempt to garner sympathy from the mainstream right, and in doing so, make themselves respectable.
But the alt-right and its fellow travelers were never going to be able to assemble a mass movement. Despite the controversy over the rally and its bloody aftermath, the white nationalists’ ideological goals remain a core part of the Trump agenda. As long as that agenda finds a home in one of the two major American political parties, a significant portion of the country will fervently support it. And as an ideological vanguard, the alt-right fulfilled its own purpose in pulling the Republican Party in its direction.
and then there’s the Trumpian view of the FBI in First Tweets before that round of golf on Day#141.