By Sam Kestenbaum January 18, 2018

Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi website publisher who called for an online “troll storm” against a Jewish woman in Montana, is arguing in court that the barrage of phone calls and anti-Semitic messages were not a threat — and she could simply have ignored them.

Many of the messagers were anti-Semitic and Holocaust-related. Anglin is also arguing that the court take into consideration the fact that he denies the Holocaust ever happened.

Last year, Anglin called on the readers of the Daily Stormer to go after Tanya Gersh, a real estate agent in Whitefish, Montana. His campaign of harassment was organized ostensibly in defense of white nationalist Richard Spencer’s mother, who lives in the area and had faced community pressure because of her son’s “alt-right” activism.

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In his legal response, Anglin argued that the court should take his “mindset” seriously when considering his case, CNN reported.

Anglin is a Holocaust denier — a theme he often picks up on his website — and some of the images that he posted on his website include pictures of Gersh and her son’s faces superimposed on the gates of a concentration camp.

“In defendant’s mindset, there are no gas chambers; there are no ovens; there are no mass killings of Jews,” Anglin and his lawyers argue in the court document. “To the speaker, these are fictional metaphors, a ‘threat’ as true as a ‘Star Wars’ fanatic sending Death Star-blowing-up — Vulcan imagery to a ‘Star Trek’ fan. It may be hateful, but it is no true threat.”

Anglin’s attorney Marc Randazza said it “doesn’t matter” that Anglin denies the Holocaust, in an interview with CNN.

“It doesn’t matter that he’s a bigot. In fact, it matters more,” Randazza said. “There is no greater way than to preach your love for the First Amendment then to take on a case from someone whose speech you abhor.”

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

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