Lawyers planning to defend the suspected Kenosha gunman run a right-wing organization that brings ‘lawsuits to stop the lies and smears of the radical left’

via: MSN | By Insider

kmclaughlin@businessinsider.com (Kelly McLaughlin)

Kyle Rittenhouse is seen cleaning up graffiti near the Kenosha County Courthouse on August 25, 2020. Scott Olson/Getty

• Attorney John Pierce is planning to defend suspected Kenosha gunman Kyle Rittenhouse.
• Rittenhouse has been charged with multiple counts, including first-degree intentional homicide, in a shooting at a Black Lives Matter protest in which two people were killed and a third was injured.
• On August 12, Pierce and fellow attorneys Lin Wood and Lawson Pedigo launched the #FightBack Foundation.
• The foundation says on its website that it plans to bring “lawsuits to stop the lies and smears of the radical left.”
• Wood said on Twitter that the #FightBack Foundation is planning to fund Rittenhouse’s defense team.
• Pierce’s former clients include Trump campaign aide Carter Page and Rudy Giuliani while Wood recently represented Covington Catholic teen Nick Sandmann.
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

A lawyer planning to defend accused Kenosha gunman Kyle Rittenhouse also represented former Trump campaign aide Carter Page and Rudy Giuliani — and now he’s launching a nonprofit to rally against the “radical left.”

The attorney, John Pierce, will be funded by the #Fightback Foundation, an organization he and fellow lawyers Lawson Pedigo and Lin Wood set up to bring “lawsuits to stop the lies and smears of the radical left.”

The team of lawyers plans to defend Rittenhouse alongside local attorneys, public defenders, Wood, who also represented Covington Catholic teen Nick Sandmann, announced on Twitter.

Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, has been charged with multiple counts, including first-degree intentional homicide, in a shooting that killed two people and injured a third at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The protests broke out in Kenosha after a white police officer shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times, leaving him paralyzed. Videos from the protests show Rittenhouse armed with an AR-15 and saying he was protecting a local business. He remains in custody in Illinois, awaiting extradition to Wisconsin.

“I and my colleagues at Pierce Bainbridge are representing Kyle Rittenhouse,” Pierce said in a statement. “We will obtain justice for Kyle.”

The #FightBack Foundation hopes to ‘bring lawsuits to stop the left’s lies’ and ‘defend the truth’

Despite the name “Fightback Foundation” already being used by a business mentoring organization, Wood, Pierce, and Pedigo launched #FightBack Foundation on August 12, according to the Appleton Post Crescent.

It bills itself as a conservative nonprofit with a goal to sue news organizations and “bring lawsuits to check the lies of the left.”

“The radical left has taken over mainstream media and they don’t care about truth,” the group says on their website. “They will lie, cancel, and defame anyone who stands in their way. But the truth still matters. And that’s why we bring lawsuits to stop the left’s lies. To defend the truth. To defend freedom.”

Both Wood and Pierce have represented clients with high political stakes in recent years.

© https://fightback.law/ #FightBack Foundation’s website calls for donations. https://fightback.law/

In 2019, Wood helped Sandmann sue CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and others over reports of a confrontation he had with activist Nathan Phillips. While speaking at the Republican National Convention earlier this week, Sandmann criticized the media, saying the “mainstream media revved up into attack mode” when video of the incident first circulated on Twitter.

Wood is perhaps best known for representing Richard Jewell, the security guard who was falsely accused of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. In recent years, he’s taken to Twitter to argue against wearing masks in the coronavirus pandemic and has shared the hashtag #WWG1WGA, a reference to a catchphrase for the QAnon movement.

Pierce, meanwhile, was part of legal teams that represented Giuliani while he was being investigated for alleged dealings in Ukraine, as well as Page in his lawsuit against the DNC and Tulsi Gabbard’s presidential campaign in its lawsuit against Hillary Clinton that has since been dropped.

Pierce was briefly put on leave from his law firm over allegations  that he owed a lender nearly $4 million

In March, Pierce was put on leave from his law firm, then called Pierce, Bainbridge, Beck, Price & Hecht, after an internal investigation found he had accepted money from a lender for personal use, Law.com reported at the time. The lender said Pierce owed nearly $4 million.

A month before Pierce was put on leave, a lawsuit from a former partner accused employees at the company of financial and sexual misconduct as well of sexual assault, according to NBC News.

Pierce has since been reinstated at the firm. Numerous partners left the firm amid the scandals, and the company changed its name to Pierce Bainbridge.

Wood said on Twitter that “Freedom loving Americans” had reached out to him about Rittenhouse’s legal representation before Pierce’s defense was announced.

“Kyle will have excellent legal representation. We owe him a legal defense,” he said on Twitter “Many others will need your help in coming days. Stay strong. Continue to speak truth. Continue to demand justice under our Constitution. Continue to be fearless Most important of all, continue to pray for your fellow citizens. Pray for our president Pray for our country. And always, always, always #FightBack.”

#FightBack did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

• Read more:
• Video emerges of Kyle Rittenhouse before the deadly shooting in Kenosha saying he was carrying a gun because ‘I gotta protect myself, obviously’
• Suspected Kenosha gunman Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot a protester after they threw a plastic bag at him, criminal complaint says
• One of the protesters killed in Kenosha tried to stop the shooter with his skateboard before being shot, girlfriend says
• Kyle Rittenhouse — the teen charged with first-degree homicide over the shooting of 3 people at Kenosha protests — was obsessed with Blue Lives Matter and appeared ‘on edge’ before shots rang out