Thread by @DavidNeiwert

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov That’s an interesting defense, Glenn. Especially considering that your “heroes” were very different men who behaved very differently than you, and engaged the defense of neo-Nazis’ free-speech rights under very different constitutional reasoning./1

aclu.org/issues/free-sp…

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Let’s briefly consider the latter: David Goldberger and his ACLU team undertook the Skokie case as a very clear-cut issue of prior restraint, involving a city’s attempts to prevent an organization’s right to peacefully assemble in the town square./2

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov As Goldberger said, this was a fairly clear-cut case involving a group about whom no evidence could be presented that they represented a threat to the townspeople of Skokie. Rather, if there was going to be violence, it would be coming from Skokie residents./3

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov This was largely because the group, the National Socialist Party, was a relatively new organization that was attempting to be a political party. Its members for its short existence were not involved in criminal violence of note beforehand (or after)./4

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_…

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov A predicate in the ACLU’s taking the lawsuit was this absence of any criminal behavior in the group’s record, which could have been grounds to deny a preliminary injunction if it could be demonstrated that the group did not intend a peaceful assembly./5

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Matthew Hale’s lawsuit against the Illinois Bar Association for denying him a license after graduating with a law degree was, however, a very, very different creature. But then, you know that./6

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130545776436760576

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Being licensed to practice law has always been carefully controlled, and the courts have traditionally granted states wide latitude in regulating the practice. Getting a law license is not a First Amendment right, nor is being denied one a matter of prior restraint./7

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Of course, the contrary was your argument before the courts. But then, it lost at every level at which it was tried, including the Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals./8

caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit…

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Remember Hale’s case: He intended to be an attorney for white people, presumably exclusively so. He proclaimed himself an “open racist.”/9

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130546146030510081

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov The Illinois Bar has always been clear that intentional racial discrimination is grounds for disqualification. This is straight from the Rules of Conduct. A recent memorandum from the committee that oversees these standards reflects this./10

isba.org/barnews/2020/0…

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Moreover, Hale’s organization, the World Church of the Creator, was also a very different creature than the National Socialist Party. It had been around for awhile, and it was notorious for its vile expressions of hatred against blacks and Jews./11

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130537328005357570

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov It also had established a hell of a record involving criminal violence. As you know, I got to cover more than my share of it here in the Pacific Northwest and in Montana./12

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130542623284817920

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Over the years, its record of criminality continued to mount. It remains impressive./13

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130554583493664768

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov You knew this, of course, when you hired on to be Hale’s attorney, pro bono in 1999. If you didn’t, well, you were about to find out the hard way./14

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130546716862586881

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov That’s because only a few months you began handling the case—having lost Hale’s final appeal before the bar—Hale’s right-hand man, Benjamin Smith, went on a three-day murder rampage that left two people dead and nine wounded./15

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130549727202750464

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Now, I might be presuming too much, but I really think it’s safe to say that the ACLU and David Goldberger would have dropped Matthew Hale as a client at this point. The connection to horrific violence was unmistakable. But you didn’t. You doubled down./16

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130551018255659008

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov You ridiculed anyone linking Hale to a murder spree by the man he had named his “Creator of the Month” and had spent 20 hours on the phone with the previous week as indulging in “guilt by association.”/17

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov And, uh, who were you talking about here, Glenn? The victims’ families? The CCR? The SPLC? "I find that the people behind these lawsuits are truly so odious and repugnant, that creates its own motivation for me."/18

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov You also attacked the SPLC (in a secondhand way) in that 2000 interview you gave where you described its primary courtroom tactic—driving hate groups out of business with civil lawsuits—as “an abuse of the court system.” Do you still think that, Glenn?/19

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130551389778669568

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov In the end, it all went totally sideways when Hale was arrested and convicted of plotting to murder the federal judge who ordered him to surrender the WCOTC’s trademark. Going down the drain, he even managed to briefly suck you back into his sphere./20

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130554249237032960

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Your defense of all this today is reminiscent of the only time you’ve ever discussed the episode, in that 2013 Rolling Stone interview./21

rollingstone.com/culture/cultur…

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Back then, you explicitly depicted yourself as heroic too: “To me, it's a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it not when it's easy ... not when it supports your position ... but when it defends and protects people that you hate."/22

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov This was news to many of us, Glenn, because in all the years that you represented Matt Hale and afterwards, you never voiced any loathing for him—though your hatred for his opponents was unmistakable./23

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov You likewise never have expressed any sympathy for the people dedicated to preventing another fascist genocide, as Goldenberger did./24

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Instead, you have lately taken to mocking and denouncing the people who voiced concern about the rise of American far-right extremism and authoritarianism—concern that, as we saw Jan. 6, was quite well-grounded./25

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1327309379302023171?lang=en

@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Everyone who has known you over the years is acutely aware that your whole persona revolves around being perceived as heroic. Which is why you cast yourself in the mold of men who actually were. But you were never like those men, Glenn, and never will be./End