George Zimmerman is suing Democratic presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg for $265 million over tweets he says suggest he’s a “white supremacist.”
The lawsuit, filed in Florida’s Polk County on Tuesday, claims Warren and Buttigieg defamed and libeled Zimmerman in tweets on Feb. 5. They used the moment “as a pretext to demagogue and falsely brand Zimmerman as a white supremacist and racist to their millions of Twitter followers,” the lawsuit says.
Zimmerman was acquitted by a jury of second-degree murder in the February 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Travyon Martin in Sanford, Florida. Prosecutors claimed Zimmerman profiled and confronted Martin. But Zimmerman said he acted in self-defense as Martin choked him and beat his head into the pavement.
The acquittal of Zimmerman catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement against violence and systemic racism toward black people.
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Neither Warren, a Massachusetts senator, nor Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, identified Zimmerman by name in the tweets in question, which marked what would have been Martin’s 25th birthday.
However, Warren tweeted her condolences to Sabrina Fulton, Martin’s mother, saying: “We need to end gun violence and racism.”
My heart goes out to @SybrinaFulton and Trayvon's family and friends. He should still be with us today.
We need to end gun violence and racism. And we need to build a world where all of our children—especially young Black boys—can grow up safe and free. https://t.co/9lXXlRnvzL
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 6, 2020
Buttigieg said: “How many 25th birthdays have been stolen from us by white supremacy, gun violence, prejudice, and fear?”
He added the hashtag “Black Lives Matter.”
Why George Zimmerman is suing Warren and Buttigieg
Zimmerman’s lawsuit claims Warren and Buttigieg were motivated by a “political agenda to garner votes in the black community.” It also takes exception with the Democrats’ references to “gun violence,” which it says tends to be associated with “reckless and indiscriminate use of illegally owned firearms.”
A recent Survey USA poll showed Warren and Buttigieg trailing the other 2020 Democrats among black voters, receiving 7 percent and 6 percent support, respectively.
Zimmerman’s lawsuit further accuses Buttigieg of implying Zimmerman shot Martin out of “fear” and “prejudice.”
“The only ‘fear’ Zimmerman experienced, as established in the 2013 trial and well-covered in the media, was in the context of Zimmerman believing he might go unconscious and die from the repeated beating of his head against the sidewalk pavement or by choking to death from the blood going down his throat due to his broken nose during the beating by Martin,” it says.
More problems, more money
Zimmerman’s attorney and founder of conservative legal rights group Judicial Watch, Larry Klayman, slammed Warren and Buttigieg in a statement, Newsweek reported.
“It is high time that the cheap and harmful use of the race card by politicians of all stripes be made to cease and desist,” he said. “Their despicable ‘race tactics’ are not only causing great harm to persons such as my client George Zimmerman, but also are damaging relations between black and white Americans who are all brothers.”
Klayman went on: “The nation should applaud Mr. Zimmerman for taking a strong stand and pushing back against hack politicians like Buttigieg and Warren, who know no bounds of decency and frankly could obviously care less about whom they hurt in their quest to dishonesty use and manipulate black voters to win the 2020 Democrat presidential primary.”
Pluralist emailed the Warren and Buttigieg campaigns for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
In a separate lawsuit filed in Polk County in December, Zimmerman is seeking $100 million in civil damages from Zimmerman’s family, prosecutors and others involved in the case. The lawsuit alleges defamation, abuse of civil process and conspiracy.
Fulton, Martin’s mother, who became a gun control activist in the wake of her son’s death and is running for a seat on the Miami-Dade County Commission, is named as the lead defendant in the case.
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