Donald Trump's blame game goes to court
What can you say to defend yourself after you are accused of roughing up a protester at a Donald Trump campaign rally? Well, you can try blaming Donald Trump.
That's the road taken by Alvin Bamberger, a 75-year-old veteran from Ohio who can be seen in videos of a Trump rally in Louisville, Ky., early last year gruffly pushing 21-year-old protester Kashiya Nwanguma through the crowd and toward the exits.
You may recall seeing the video of Nwanguma, a young black woman, being pushed and jostled through the mostly white and male crowd of Trump supporters while Trump shouts "Get 'em out of here!" from the podium. She wasn't the only protestor but the scene of the black woman surrounded by angry white men was too dramatic for TV to resist repeated replays.
Now a federal judge has told Nwanguma and two other protestors that they can proceed with a lawsuit that accuses Trump, his campaign and three supporters, including Bamberger, of inciting violence.
Trump's lawyers tried to have the suit dismissed, arguing that when he shouted "Get 'em out of here," he was not calling on his supporters to use force. Leave it to super- spinmaster Trump to come up with that stretch.
U.S. District Judge David J. Hale in Louisville wasn't buying it. He ruled Friday that there were sufficient facts to show it is "plausible" that the protesters' injuries were a "direct and proximate result" of Trump's words.
"It was an order, an instruction, a command," said the judge, who also noted that the Supreme Court has ruled out constitutional protections for speech that incites violence.
Then Trump's case was further undermined by Bamberger in a cross-claim against Trump, of all people. Bamberger claimed that Trump had indeed incited him and others as he "repeatedly urged people attending Trump rallies to remove individuals who were voicing opposition to Trump's candidacy," Bamberger's attorneys wrote.
"Indeed, at one or more campaign rallies," Bamberger's filing said, Trump "promised to pay the legal fees of those who -- following Trump's urging -- removed the protesters."
"Bamberger would not have acted as he did without Trump and/or the Trump campaign's specific urging and inspiration," his filing said.
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