More broadly, he and his attorneys from the Georgetown Law Civil Rights Clinic said they hope to show that the First Amendment does not protect Jones and others whose sensational falsehoods have inspired vicious responses.

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“We’re really trying to set a new paradigm for how people like Alex Jones and Infowars operate, to inject some consequences, legal consequences into that world and hold them accountable for the terror they cause,” attorney Andrew Mendrala said in an interview. “We don’t think the First Amendment protects blatantly defamatory speech that inspires violence and hatred of victims of terrorist attacks and mass shootings.”

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Gilmore was using his phone to film counterprotesters at an Aug. 12 white-supremacist rally in downtown Charlottesville when a car rammed into the crowd, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and wounding dozens of others.

James Fields, a self-professed neo-Nazi, is charged with first-

degree murder in her death.

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Gilmore caught the deadly assault on video. He posted it on Twitter, calling it an act of terrorism and encouraging people to “stay home.”

The video was widely viewed; Gilmore was repeatedly interviewed. Then the online attacks began. Gilmore could not have simply caught the moment on video by accident, Jones and the others concluded.

Given his work for the State Department and his past job as chief of staff for former congressman Tom Perriello, they claimed, he must be working for the CIA to undermine President Trump.

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Lee Stranahan, a former writer for Breitbart, appeared in a video on the Infowars website called “Bombshell Connection Between Charlottesville, Soros, CIA.” In the video, Stranahan asks how Gilmore happened to catch the video of Heyer’s death and says he sees similarities between what happened at the rally and the revolution in the Ukraine.

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“The way she’s being used is she’s a martyr to the cause,” Stranahan. “Are they trying to get a coup? I think clearly they are.”

“I’m like a lot of people trying to figure out what the hell happened there,” Stranahan said in an interview Wednesday. “The idea that there’s an implication that I don’t state explicitly -- everybody does that all the time.”

“I dont think you can sue based on” such commentary, he said, adding he thinks the suit is a frivolous one designed to shut him down.

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Stranahan is named as a defendant in the suit. Among the other defendants are Jim Hoft, who on his blog Gateway Pundit called Gilmore a “deep-state shill,” and former Florida congressman Allen West, who posted an article on his website saying the Charlottesville attack was a “set-up.”

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Gilmore said he was deluged with death threats, hate mail and online hacking attempts.

His parents’ address was posted online; a powdery substance was sent to their house.

As recently as last month, Gilmore said, someone suggested his body would be found in the Rivanna River, which runs by his home.

“It’s died off significantly, but it’s still very present,” he said. “I’m sort of constantly having to look over my shoulder.”

Infowars did not respond to a request for comment, but Jones said on his show on Tuesday that he believed the complaint was a “misrepresentation of what we said about the event.”

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Hoft and another defendant also disputed the accusations; West did not respond to a request for comment.

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Gilmore is on leave from the Foreign Service, and he says the smears have made his current work in rural workforce development more challenging.

He fears that if he goes abroad again, he will be taken as an undercover CIA operative.

Conservative friends from the local bluegrass music scene believe he might be one, he said.

“People really distanced themselves from me and even condemned me that I grew up playing music with,” he said.

Mendrala said that while he believes the defamation case is clear-cut, there is little precedent for how it will proceed.

Jones settled a lawsuit last year with the yogurt company Chobani and retracted claims about its employees.

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Gilmore says he has no intention of settling; he is asking for a jury trial.

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“The motivation . . . is the broader implications of the new era of the saturation of these fake news outlets,” he said. “There’s no money that would be offered in a settlement that would make me drop the suit.”

Clarification: An earlier version of this article failed to include the context of Lee Stranahan’s commentary. It has been updated.