Timothy Litzenburg represents two women injured in the melee who last week sued 28 groups and individuals, including the alleged organizers of the Unite the Right march. He says the documents could be “the crux of the case,” because they show “a little flavor of how [organizers] totally intended on violence and mayhem.”

The documents published by Unicorn Riot focus on months of chat logs from Charlottesville 2.0, a private “server” inside Discord operated by far-right provocateurs Jason Kessler and Eli Mosley, among others. Mosley, a self-described “alt-right” activist, says in an interview that the few documents and recordings highlighted on Unicorn Riot’s website appear authentic, but he does not trust the outlet. Mosley says the documents and recording show him repeatedly urging nonviolence; he says he banned 80 people from the Charlottesville server, some for advocating violence.

On the recording, Mosley says, “Going up to, like, MSNBC and them interviewing you and you saying like, ‘Yeah, I actually think we should kill every nonwhite on the planet’ … like, again, I don’t necessarily like have an issue with listening to that on a podcast or whatever, but if you are gonna do something like that, even if it’s your true belief, that’s not the objective of this rally.”

Mosley says he is careful to hew to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brandenburg vs. Ohio, a landmark 1968 case that said the government cannot punish even hateful speech unless it incites “imminent lawless action.” Allen Lichtenstein, a former lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, says the ensuing violence would have to happen “more or less immediately.” Mosley says his political opponents get hysterical over the "dark humor" of the alt-right. “The idea that little tractor meme is somehow a call to run people over is ridiculous,” he says. In a courtroom, however, judges or juries may take a different view of such statements.

Litzenburg, the lawyer for the women injured at the protest, says the organizers’ warnings against violence may not protect them legally. “Saying ‘y’all be good now wink wink’ I don’t think washes your hands of violence in this case,” he says. Potential claims by organizers that they acted in self-defense could be undercut by chatroom transcripts that show they were “waiting and hoping for [an action] that will justifiably trigger a violent response,” says Jeffrey Douglas, a board member of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.