In the "They're Not Even Trying To Hide It Anymore" category, Kevin Gough, the attorney defending the men who lynched Ahmaud Arbery wants to make sure no more "Black pastors" like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are permitted to attend the trial. Here's this racist piece of sh*t's argument, such as it is.
"The idea that we're going to be serially bringing these people in to sit with the victim's family, one after another, obviously, there's only so many pastors they can have. And if their pastor's Al Sharpton right now, that's fine, but that's IT, we don't want any more Black pastors coming in here. Jesse Jackson, or whoever was in here earlier this week, sitting with the victim's family, trying to influence the jury in this case, and I'm not saying the State is even aware that Mr. Sharpton was in the courtroom, I certainly wasn't aware of it."
“We don’t want any more black pastors coming in here.”
Defense attorney for one of the men charged with murder in Ahmaud Arbery case objecting to Rev. Al Sharpton sitting in courtroom yesterday and says it’s intimidating. The same for @RevJJackson. @TheRevAl @NationalAction pic.twitter.com/t8FIF1Yp0r— Tiffany Alaniz (@TiffanyAlaniz) November 11, 2021
First of all, it's Reverend Al Sharpton to you, assh*le. It's Reverend Jesse Jackson. How f*cking dare you.
Second of all, "these people?" To which people are you referring, kEvIn? Would it be *whispers* "Black" people? Or maybe, perchance, you meant, religious people? Like, what if Joel Osteen walked in to sit with Ahmaud Arbery's grieving father during the trial? Would you have objected to him, KEVIN? I'm kidding, everyone knows Osteen would never. But to your point, would the jury find HIM intimidating?
Thirdly, "there's only so many pastors they can have?" What? Again, are you talking about Black people? Like, how many pastors can there possibly BE? Because I assure you, there are many more pastors than Revs. Jackson and Sharpton, believe it or not. And not to totally fry your tiny brain, but some Black people even have pastors who aren't Black!
Or did you mean, maybe, how many pastors might the Arbery family have? In which case, the answer is as many pastors as they damn well please, you neo-Nazi knuckle-dragging skinhead wannabe.
And what exactly might the jury find intimidating about a grieving father who is Black being comforted by a pastor who is also Black and who might happen to be well-known in the Civil Rights movement? How is that intimidating to the jury? Seriously, KEVIN, why don't you just come out and say that it all ties in with your defense of these murdering racist pigs, which is predicated on the lie that Black people in general are sCaRy! That's why your defendants needed gunz and trucks to chase down an unarmed Black man whose "crime" (which they imagined, probably) was having been in an empty, uninhabited, partially constructed home. And you're hoping the jury subscribes to that heinous lie, too, but just to make sure, you're using the presence of Black pastors in the audience to reinforce that disgusting trope.
Well, thankfully, after KEVIN made another absurd comment about people wearing Colonel Sanders clothes and white masks (no one was doing that, Kevin, what the hell are you on about?) the judge cut him off to deliver this ruling on the matter.
Defense atty Kevin Gough argued @TheRevAl being in courtroom yesterday and @RevJJackson earlier in trial intimidated jury.
Gough said, “we don’t want any more black pastors coming in here..”
After more argument from Gough, here’s what Judge Walmsley said. #AhmaudArbery pic.twitter.com/ZQeN5JJCwn— Tiffany Alaniz (@TiffanyAlaniz) November 11, 2021
"The fact that nobody else even noticed he was in here means that everybody complied with this court's rulings on sitting in this courtroom and listening to the evidence," said Judge Walmsley. "I don't hear a motion, and I will tell you this. I am not going to blanketly exclude members of the public from this courtroom," he continued. "If individuals, based on the limitations that we have in the courtroom end up sitting in the courtroom, and they can do so respectful of the court's process and in compliance with this court's orders with regard to the conduct of the trial, and they're not a distraction, then I'm not going to do anything about it, and I did not hear from anyone that there was any distraction whatsoever."
Mind you, this is the same judge who declared he saw intentional racial discrimination in the jury selection of this case, shrugged, and allowed it to move forward anyhow with a nearly all-white jury. So I'm not ready to sing dude's praises. But in this particular situation, he showed KEVIN what's what, and for that, he gets a golf clap.
