President Donald Trump might like to act like assault is no big deal, but the FBI says otherwise. They’ve set their sights on another handful of leading violent white nationalists, three of whom were in custody as of Wednesday afternoon –including one man who had fled the country.
Robert Rundo helped found the Rise Above Movement in southern California, which has made an appearance at a number of violent white nationalist demonstrations, and he’s now in federal authorities’ custody after having fled first into Mexico and then further into Central America in recent weeks. It’s ironic, one might add, for him to have used Central American countries as an attempted hideout while his dear leader Donald Trump goes on and on about what wretched places they supposedly are.
In the FBI’s filing against Rundo, they outlined a number of specific recent violent incidents that he and his group were involved in.
For instance, his group was in Charlottesville, Virginia, late last year for the violent massing of white supremacists that ended with one counterprotester dead. Four members of the organization have already been charged with conspiracy to riot charges over the violence before the present crop.
According to authorities, Rundo was directly involved in violence on occasions including March and April 2017 events in Huntington Beach and Berkeley, California, respectively, where he was caught on camera preparing for and perpetrating violence. Rundo personally assaulted at least two counterprotesters in Huntington Beach and a counterprotester and a police officer in Berkeley, the FBI said that videos show. Rundo had already been previously arrested in connection to the April Berkeley violence.
At the March Huntington Beach event he attended, one of his associates, Tyler Laube — who’s also been picked up by authorities — was caught on camera repeatedly punching a journalist in the head.
President Donald Trump supports this behavior, as evidenced by some of his recent comments in support of Montana Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte’s assault on a reporter back when he was first running for his current seat.
Just this month at a rally in the Congressman’s state, Trump told a cheering crowd of the controversial U.S. House member:
‘Never wrestle him, you understand that? Any guy who can do a body slam is my kind of guy.’
The two items — Trump’s incessant praise of violence and Rundo and others’ behavior — can not be separated. They feed back into each other in an endless loop that will only be broken by the election of someone to replace Trump in 2020.
In the meantime, Trump attempts — sometimes — to cast himself as opposed to violence. Just this week, a presently unidentified individual or group sent an array of bombs to prominent Democrats across the country, from everyone to former President Barack Obama to former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder — and even included CNN in the mix, targeting them too.
No insistence from the president that the full weight of the government is behind an investigation into the attempted bombings will do away with the responsibility he maintains for the violence.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
