A new Supreme Court petition filed by political activist Warren Balogh sheds light on what he calls the ‘intentional dereliction of duty’ by Charlottesville officials during the infamous 2017 “Unite the Right” rally. The petition, appealing a lower court decision from the Fourth Circuit, raises serious constitutional questions about whether local governments can deliberately allow chaos and violence as a means of suppressing speech they dislike.
Balogh is a self-described ‘pro-white’ activist. Far-left groups use a variety of labels to describe him as a ‘white nationalist’ and other such defamatory terms. Balogh says he was at the Charlottesville rally for only one purpose: to oppose the destruction of a historical monument. The Lee monument was destroyed in 2023, despite promises by officials it would be relocated.
Balogh is appealing the Fourth Circuit’s dismissal of his claims, as part of Balogh v. Virginia, 120 F.4th 127. That appeal was decided by Chief Judge Albert Diaz, an Obama appointee. That court said that because the participants engaged in violence, they were not entitled to protection from the police, a ruling at odds with the evidence in the case.
You can read the request for Supreme Court review here.
Charlottesville’s supposed right-wing violence is the reason Joe Biden gave for running against Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
ALLEGATION: GOVERNMENT DELIBERATELY SOUGHT VIOLENCE
The “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville became a flashpoint in American political history, but according to this Supreme Court filing, the event was doomed from the start—not by the protestors, but by the city’s leadership. The lawsuit argues that Charlottesville police officers were ordered to “stand down” while violent far-left Antifa counter-protesters clashed with demonstrators, ensuring the event spiraled into disorder.
Balogh’s legal team alleges that city officials knowingly refused to maintain public order, allowing Antifa-aligned groups to provoke violence. The filing contends that this deliberate inaction was a strategy—the violence created a pretext for shutting down the protest and blaming the right-wing demonstrators.
This point has been confirmed in prior Gateway Pundit reporting, where previously-unseen drone footage from the day of the event shows that the pro-Lee-statue protesters were being attacked and abused and were refusing to fight back. The far-left, on the other hand, was allowed to get away with anything they wanted, even when crimes were committed in front of police officers.
Far-left Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe even bragged about telling the police to ‘stand down’ in his book, on page 95, about the Charlottesville event. This was done by ‘screwing protocol’ in his words, and declaring a state emergency and demanding the park be cleared. “The critical thing here,” Balogh told the Gateway Pundit, “is that the police only attacked the right-wing protesters. They didn’t clear streets of the Antifa protesters waving Communist flags, they came only at the right-wing protesters. Governor McAuliffe was a top Clinton fundraiser, a corrupt member of left-wing elites, and they saw this as revenge against Donald Trump’s supporters. Hillary’s fundraiser’s agenda was to invent violence to shut down a peaceful rally. This was nothing but woke overreach.”
“They drove us into Market Street, they drove us into Antifa. I got attacked twice that day. The first time was in Lee Park when I got sprayed in the face with riot-grade pepper spray as the police pushed us out of the park, where we had a permit. Then when I was half-blinded by police, I got clubbed from behind by a masked member of Antifa. We were pushed out into the street to get us to fight with Antifa.”
LEGAL QUESTIONS BEFORE THE COURT
The Supreme Court petition asks the justices to weigh in on several major constitutional issues:
- Does the First Amendment protect speech even when local governments deliberately allow violence to erupt as a justification for suppression?
- Can police officers who intentionally refuse to maintain order—while knowing their inaction will lead to violence—hide behind qualified immunity, a legal theory that makes them immune from lawsuits?
- Should municipalities be held accountable under Supreme Court precedent (Monell v. Department of Social Services) when their top officials orchestrate conditions that violate constitutional rights?
The case hinges on whether government officials can manipulate violent conditions to crack down on speech they oppose, a dangerous precedent if left unchecked according to Balogh.
ALLEGATION: GOVT. WANTED VIOLENCE TO JUSTIFY SHUTTING DOWN PROTEST
The petition argues that Charlottesville officials, led by Police Chief Al Thomas and Lieutenant Becky Crannis-Curl, took active steps to fuel tensions. Instead of enforcing the rule of law, the lawsuit alleges, they allowed left-wing extremists to run amok, ensuring that the right-wing protesters could be blamed for the resulting chaos.
Evidence cited in the filing suggests that the police:
- Stood down and refused to intervene as violence erupted.
- Blocked exit routes, preventing protestors from leaving safely.
- Waited until the situation was out of control before shutting down the rally entirely.
The consequences were tragic. In the aftermath, the media and political establishment used the day’s events to falsely frame the entire rally as right-wing violence, a narrative still echoed today.
COURTS KEEP DISMISSING CRITICAL FREE SPEECH CASE
Lower courts have largely dismissed Balogh’s claims, relying on the legal shield of qualified immunity—a doctrine that often protects government officials from lawsuits unless a clear precedent has already established their actions as unconstitutional.
“I went there to support the Robert E. Lee statue that day,” said Balogh. “I went there peacefully. I had no weapons, no body armor, we were a group of people who were proud of our history and didn’t want the woke mob to use ISIS-tactics to destroy the memory of people and events. That’s why we were there, and we were attacked by the government for expressing our free speech. We could have defended ourselves against Antifa, but we couldn’t also fight the police and the National Guard, and that’s what we were facing.“
The Supreme Court has in past cases ruled that police must make reasonable efforts to protect speech, even in contentious situations. The petition argues that the Fourth Circuit ignored key Supreme Court rulings, including Terminiello v. Chicago, where the Court upheld the principle that speech cannot be suppressed simply because it provokes hostility.
The City had previously tried to allow left-wing protesters who wanted to tear down the statue of Robert E. Lee, but to deny permits to protesters who wanted to protect the Lee statue. This was the basis of litigation prior to the “Unite the Right” rally where the city wanted to allow one viewpoint over another, and a federal judge, Glen E. Conrad, did not allow the government to allow one viewpoint or another.
What Balogh alleges is that, as a way to defy the judiciary, the court’s rulings, and the Constitution, the government conspired to create the violence necessary to justify shutting down the protest anyway.
Balogh’s legal team also points to conflicting rulings from other circuits, where courts have ruled that government actors cannot enable violent mobs as an excuse to silence unpopular opinions. The Fourth Circuit’s ruling runs contrary to these precedents, making it ripe for Supreme Court review.
LITIGANTS: GOVT. SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO CREATE VIOLENCE TO SILENCE SPEAKERS & SPEECH IT DISLIKES
The implications of this case extend far beyond Charlottesville. If local governments can intentionally refuse to enforce the law to suppress speech, then the First Amendment is effectively meaningless.
If the Supreme Court takes up the case and rules in favor of Balogh, it could establish a major precedent preventing state and local governments from using orchestrated chaos as a weapon against speech they oppose. It would also put law enforcement on notice that standing down in the face of political violence is not an acceptable strategy.
The Gateway Pundit was sued for defamation by one of the rally participants, Brennan Gilmore. In the course of the case, discovery revealed that the Department of Justice’s controversial “Civil Rights Division” was on-site several days prior to the “Unite the Right” rally. In addition, the City had hired multiple major press firms, one of which it didn’t end up using at all.
Even more explosively, discovery received by the Gateway Pundit in that litigation revealed that the Department of Justice’s agents on the ground in Charlottesville were coordinating on the morning of the rally with a Vice President of the World Bank. These phone logs suggest that an extensive, vast, deep state operation was underway to create violence at the Charlottesville rally, use the violence as a way to smear President Trump, and also as a major political operation underway to advance a far-left agenda.
That major deep state effort would also explain why the prosecutions of those arrested at Charlottesville were so extreme and politically charged. James Fields hit Heather Heyer with his vehicle while attempting to leave town. State and Federal prosecutors alleged it was domestic terrorism, even though it was clearly a case of vehicular manslaughter, where Heyer died of a heart attack having been trampled by the crowd after Fields crashed into a series of cars being swarmed by a left-wing mob. Fields was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole plus 419 years in prison on the state charges. Federal prosecutors then threatened to bring the death penalty against him, and coerced Fields into accepting a plea on federal charges which saw a concurrent life imprisonment sentence without the possibility of parole.
Balogh makes that point even blunter, “There was a plan to shut it all down from the beginning, and Heather Heyer would be alive today if the police did their jobs that day. The government set the stage for what happened, and their reckless plan caused everything that resulted. Fields should be freed.”
The Charlottesville riots were a turning point in modern American politics, used to justify an unprecedented crackdown on free speech and political dissent. Now, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to correct the record and send a clear message: government officials cannot use violent mobs as a tool to silence opposition.
Balogh’s fight is about the future of free speech in America. The Supreme Court takes up very few cases every year, typically 100-150 of the 10,000 application it receives. The Court is likely loathe to stand up for what it perceives as controversial speakers, but the case presents the chance to strike down the trend of the government abusing the law, and abusing law enforcement, to shut down speakers it dislikes.
Despite the odds, Balogh is encouraged by the simple fact of preserving a record of what happened at Charlottesville. “I don’t have any illusions about whether the Court will have the courage to take this case. But I’ve put the evidence on the record, and the filings speak for themselves,” he said. “I want to set the record straight about what happened at Charlottesville, and the injustice done to peaceful protesters who were attacked by the police and the government as we tried to demonstrate against the destruction of our history and monuments. The court may be cowards, the cops and politicians might be hopelessly corrupt, and the media may be liars, but these filings tell the truth.”
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