While Texas anti-fascist found ‘not guilty,’ billionaire GOP megadonor reportedly bankrolled trial for fascist, anti-Semitic group

On Thursday, August 8, Chris “Big Tex” was acquitted by a jury in a criminal case on charges of “assault on a police officer,” following a spring 2023 mobilization to defend a drag event at a Fort Worth, Texas brewery in response to threats from fascist groups.

Chris “Big Tex”

In a message to supporters on the Free text website, Chris wrote:

On April 23, 2023, Fort Worth police attacked and beat me because I stood on a corner and stopped Nazis from filming people entering a drag show. Within hours of my arrest, the police, working with the elected district attorney, falsely developed a claim that I had assaulted them, a claim they failed to mention in 24 reports and additional reports. The county’s Chief Integrity Officer took a case that covered 2.5 seconds of my life to concoct the grandest conspiracy: that I was a terrorist, the leader of a criminal street gang, that I paid people to engage in unlicensed security, that cleaning water off my umbrella was a “secret antifa signal,” you name it. They tried to cover up 2.5 seconds with two years of lies and the jury saw right through it from the start.

I won’t mince my words here. We watched for days as officers took the stand to lie, contradicted each other constantly, and even more wildly misrepresented and lied about the very things we all saw on the screen together. We watched as the accusations that Christian fascists have long been making against me were methodically dismantled into the lies that they were. Here is an archive of daily updates from the trial for all four days. Please read it, it is impossible to convey the absurdity to anyone who wasn’t there.

After four full days of intense tension, Tarrant County sealed their fate when they marched a wall of officers into the courtroom to stare at the jury as they read my charges. Less than 45 minutes later, I heard those beautiful words: Not guilty.

I am eternally grateful to my legal team who saw this blatant political persecution for what it was from the beginning and their fierce dedication to justice as they helped me feel like a person who mattered. I will never forget their righteous anger and dedication to truth. I am so grateful to my wife and family, both blood and chosen, whose endless source of hope and strength pulled me through the darkest days. I am so grateful to the journalist who spent every moment of those long four days in court with my family so my story could be told. And I am so grateful to the Quakers who stood by my side from beginning to end, keeping me balanced and centered.

I never wanted it to be about me, I never wanted the attention or the soapbox, but I’m grateful for everyone who listened to me and I’m glad I have the next twenty years of my life back.

The real danger has passed, but the lawsuit against me by New Columbia Movement, funded by their billionaire donor, is still very real and in that lawsuit I am defending myself. I will be back in civil court on August 13th to defend myself again and as before, the truth will set me free.

I am faced with an overwhelming amount of expenses to recover from two extra days of trial, investigation preparation and expenses related to fighting the civil lawsuit. If you can help, please send a few bones my way.

One of the biggest fanatics who came to protest the event was Kelly Neidert, a self-described “Christian fascist” who has called for the “rounding up” of people attending Pride celebrations and is reportedly a member of the fascist group the New Columbia Movement. Neidert has organized several anti-LGBTQ+ protests, which have been attended by both Trump supporters and outright neo-Nazi groups who have waved swastika flags. According to the Daily Beast, “Kelly has also received support from former Proud Boys attorney Jason Lee Van Dyke,” who served as SHAME reported that he attempted to join the neo-Nazi paramilitary group The Base, but his request was denied.

Ky testified at the trial.le Randle, a former member of the New Columbia Movement who participated in the far-right rally outside the brewery in Fort Worth, TX. According to Alexandra Edwards, who reported on the trial, Kyle is also suing Chris and “his co-plaintiffs are Joshua Finecy and Anthony Long…(also former) members of New Columbia (Movement)…”

Edwards further reported that during the trial it was revealed that billionaire real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Monty Bennett, publisher of The Dallas Express, is essentially funding the fascist group’s lawsuit. In addition to massive donations to Donald Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Bennett is best known for scamming tens of millions in PPP loans during the COVID-19 pandemic and pushing various attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and public education.

Members of the New Columbia Movement shake hands with the leader of Patriot Front during an anti-abortion rally in Washington DC

The New Columbia Movement is known for fusing European fascism with authoritarian Catholicism and American nationalist symbolism. As Steve Monacelli wrote, the group includes a form of “Carlism, a semi-fascist Catholic pro-monarchist ideology, (which) emerged in 19th century Spain and played a role in Franco’s brutal regime.”

As Political Research Associates reported:

In a manifesto posted on its website, the group… calls the idea of ​​equality — or at least what it sees as “unnatural equality” — “evil,” describes democracy as a “failed experiment,” and advocates a “Roman” model as the solution to “America’s cultural diversity,” in which “subject peoples” would be allowed to “preserve” their “personal culture,” but only under “a high American culture” based on “Christian morality, the rule of law, and the common good.”

In YouTube videos, leaders of the New Columbia Movement have referred to Elliot Rodger, the incel mass murderer who shot and killed six people in Santa Barbara in 2014, as “the supreme lord”—a self-aggrandizing term Rodger used in his final video before the massacre that has since become a common pet name on far-right forums like 4chan. Leaders have also trafficked in anti-Semitism, as when one leader claimed in a 2021 livestream titled “The Sexual Revolution and its Consequences” that Jews “actually have a very tight stranglehold on the porn industry” and “a huge stranglehold on Hollywood.” Another leader added, “This could turn into a ‘JQ’ podcast very quickly!”—a reference to the alt-right and neo-Nazi abbreviation for “the Jewish Question.” The movement’s social media posts also regularly disparage Jewish religious texts such as the Talmud, and one Instagram post captioned an image of ancient Israelite Jews “the most dangerous enemy in the world.”

In the group’s first livestream broadcast in July 2020, co-founders SK Nicholas Chimera Jr. and Nicholas Haas — both of whom claim to be fourth-degree members of the Catholic fraternity Knights of Columbus — detailed their ideological journey to the far right. When the two met in college, Haas explained, SK was “a borderline National Socialist wignat” — a reference to an online neo-Nazi subculture — and frequented neo-fascist online forums, while Haas described himself as “basically the definition of a Three Percenter militiaman.” SK, who has expressed admiration for the former fascist regimes in Italy and Spain, added that “both of those positions lacked God. That’s the thing. Once we introduced God into it, it was fine.”

Members of the New Columbia Movement routinely assemble alongside neo-Nazi groups that openly display Nazi imagery. New Columbia Movement social media posts promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and directly attack Jews. In January 2024, members of the New Columbia Movement were filmed shaking hands and rallying with members of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front at an anti-abortion march in Washington, D.C. Patriot Front is a rebranding of Vanguard America, a group that marched in Charlottesville in 2017, where a member of the group murdered anti-fascist protester Heather Heyer after driving a car into a crowd of demonstrators. Members of Patriot Front have called for “ethno-state rape gangs” and have filmed themselves giving the Hitler salute.

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott welcomed his arrest.

The fact that a capitalist billionaire and megadonor to the GOP is supporting a self-proclaimed fascist group that spreads anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and organizes rallies with neo-Nazi groups shows the extent to which the elite are committed to suppressing popular opposition to their anti-working class, white supremacist policies.

Bennett’s funding of the New Columbia Movement lawsuit is also just the latest example of the Republican Party in Texas having direct ties to neo-Nazis and white supremacists. In the fall of 2023, the Texas Tribune reported that “Jonathan Stickland, the ultraconservative leader of a group that has donated millions of dollars to prominent Texas leaders, hosted prominent white supremacist Nick Fuentes and other right-wing activists (including Kyle Rittenhouse) for several hours…” In May of this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott also pardoned Daniel Perry, a far-right Trump supporter who was found guilty of killing “Garret Foster… in Austin, Texas, during a Black Lives Matter protest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.”

This whole ordeal also shows how the various forces, ranging from street-level fascists to the Governor of Texas who tweeted praise for the police for arresting Chris, to billionaires like Bennett who are funding a lawsuit for a literal fascist group and employing journalists at the Dallas Express who write pieces attacking anti-fascists – are all working towards the same goal: to crush communities that stand together. It is up to us to fight back and show that our solidarity is indeed a weapon.

For more information on how you can support Chris in his ongoing battle in court, go here . Another comrade, Aeshna, is also raising money for another case stemming from the same protest. More information on how you can support, go here . For more updates on the upcoming lawsuit filed by the fascist group the New Columbia Movement, go here .