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Soon after a member of the far-right Proud Boys, who is accused of attacking left-wing protesters last October, took the witness stand in his own defense last week, a prosecutor questioned him about the group’s founder, Gavin McInnes.

Wasn’t it true, the prosecutor asked the witness, Maxwell Hare, that he had been onstage with Mr. McInnes in 2018 when he spoke about assaulting people? Did he remember Mr. McInnes saying another time that there is “not enough violence” these days?

And was Mr. Hare familiar with Mr. McInnes’s belief that one is not a man until, among other things, he has beaten someone up and been beaten up?

On Wednesday, during closing arguments, a prosecutor was even more direct: “Gavin McInnes is not a harmless satirist. He is a hatemonger.”