Fast Forward

David Duke To Judge: I Won’t Hand Over My Charlottesville Emails

Members of the Ku Klux Klan are escorted out of a planned rally on July 8, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Image by Getty Images

By Helen Chernikoff February 27, 2018

Lawyers who are suing white supremacists for conspiring to foster and carry out violence at last summer’s “Unite the Right” rally are trying to get some papers from former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke — but he says it’s too much trouble, and too expensive.

Roberta Kaplan, who successfully argued before the Supreme Court to overturn ban on same-sex marriage, is one of the lawyers representing various counter-protesters at the rally, including people struck by the driver of the car who killed Heather Heyer. They’re suing Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer and others, alleging that the rally was a pretext for violence illegal under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

They are not suing Duke himself, but as part of the suit, they are demanding communications regarding the violence, financial support for the rally and meetings between him and other white supremacists.

Duke, who is representing himself, is refusing on the grounds that the request would subject him to “undue burden and expense.”

“Whatever burden he now claims does not outweigh my clients’ right to relevant information in Mr. Duke’s possession that relate to the defendants’ conspiracy to commit racially-motivated violence,” Kaplan said in a statement.

Contact Helen Chernikoff at chernikoff@forward.com or on Twitter @thesimplechild

Helen Chernikoff is the Forward’s News Editor. She came to the Forward from The Jewish Week, where she served as the first web director and created both a blog dedicated to disability issues and a food and wine website. Before that, she covered the housing, lodging and logistics industries for Reuters, where she could sit at her desk and watch her stories move the stock market. Helen has a Master’s of Public Administration from Columbia University and a BA in History and French from Amherst College. She is also a rabbinical school dropout. Contact her at chernikoff@forward.com and follow her on Twitter at @thesimplechild.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO