Meet Hatreon: Was Charlottesville Violence a Crowd-Funded Hate Conspiracy?

Can someone seek funding to hold a white supremacist rally? Apparently, yes. Hatreon is a crowdfunding website without hate speech restrictions. 
It’s an invite-only website. The picture below shows its members, most if not all associated with hardcore hate groups (click to enlarge).

Did Hatreon crowd-fund a conspiracy to commit violence at Charlottesville?

That’s one of the questions put forth in a lawsuit, Sines v. Kessler. Recently, Hatreon was reportedly put under a court order of discovery—legalese for sworn-testimony connected to a lawsuit.

The plaintiffs are 19 people who claim physical and emotional injuries arising out of white supremacist violence.

One plaintiff survived the speeding and swerving car that killed Heather Heyer.

Another plaintiff suffered a stress-induced stroke.

These plaintiffs allege that the Unite the Right rally wasn’t an expression of free speech that got out of hand, but instead, as lead attorney Roberta Kaplan told a reporter, “a direct conspiracy to commit violence.”

Kaplan’s legal team reportedly has collected thousands of hours of chats and videos created by the defendants and leaked online — including white nationalist pundit Richard Spencer, rally organizer Jason Kessler, and Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website — that urged participants to prepare for and commit violence in Charlottesville.

Meanwhile a Cincinnati-area lawyer is representing the defendants, who are white supremacists and neo-Nazis. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, James E. Kolenich, got involved because “white people must save and preserve their civilization.” He added: “My willingness to get involved is to oppose Jewish influence in society. It’s plain that white people are the chosen people in the New Testament. It’s the job that we were given, to spread Christianity around the world. That doesn’t involve hatred of other races, not even of ethnic Jews. But it does involve opposing their un-Christian influence in society.”