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Tweet from 'Unite the Right' Organizer's Account Attacks Charlottesville Murder Victim

An 18 August 2017 tweet from Jason Kessler's Twitter account described slain counter-protester Heather Heyer as a "fat, disgusting Communist."

Published Aug. 19, 2017

 (Evan Nesterak / Flickr.com)
Image Via Evan Nesterak / Flickr.com

The issuance of an explosive, late-evening tweet from the account of Jason Kessler, organizer of the "Unite the Right" rally that ended in fatal violence one week earlier in Charlottesville, Virginia, has prompted a rare condemnation from the entire length and breadth of the United States political spectrum, from extreme left to extreme right.

The criticism was earned by the nature of its comments directed at Heather Heyer, the counter-protester who was killed in a vehicular attack during the 11 August rally. The tweet (since deleted) went out at 9:25 P.M. on 18 August 2017:

Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time.


As of this writing, it is still unclear whether Kessler himself actually posted the tweet, which includes a link to the Nazi hate site Daily Stormer, (a source Kessler hadn't typically quoted or referenced in previous tweets, despite his own avowed "pro-white" stance).

A few hours after that tweet appeared, in fact, Daily Stormer owner Andrew Auernheimer (aka "Weev") claimed via Gab (another social media platform) that he had hacked Kessler's Twitter account:


In subsequent tweets, Kessler (or whomever was controlling his account) "repudiated" the Heather Heyer post, blaming the outburst on stress, drugs, and alcohol:

Not long afterward, the account was locked, then completely deleted.

The controversy added another layer of intrigue to what appears to be an ongoing effort by Kessler's former alt-right cohorts to isolate and discredit him in the wake of the disastrous Charlottesville event. A conspiracy theory floated by the likes of Alex Jones, Roger Stone, and others attempted to make the case that Kessler was an agent provocateur of the left (or the "alt-left") and the violence-plagued rally was a "false flag" operation by George Soros and the so-called "deep state" to discredit the right and foment social unrest.

Apart from the fact that Kessler was at one time a Barack Obama supporter and evinced a passing interest in the Occupy movement, however, the grounds on which Kessler's detractors have founded their attacks are demonstrably false: Kessler was never an employee of CNN (both CNN and Kessler confirmed this to us), for example, nor did he receive campaign consulting fees from a Democratic Congressional candidate in 2012, nor did he "suddenly" convert to an alt-right political stance when President Trump was elected.

The Heather Heyer tweet gave this group a new pretext for disavowing Kessler and pinning the Charlottesville debacle on everyone but the alt-right itself:


We reached out to Jason Kessler for comment, but he did not respond to our request. A spokesperson for Twitter, Inc. told us they can't comment on the incident due to privacy restrictions.

David Emery is a West Coast-based writer and editor with 25 years of experience fact-checking rumors, hoaxes, and contemporary legends.