'Trump Train' Members Cleared Of Wrongdoing In Connection With 2020 Incident

A federal jury in Texas has cleared nearly all "Trump Train" defendants in connection with a 2020 incident that saw a convoy of Trump supporters driving alongside a Biden-Harris campaign bus. The Trump supporters had been accused of "voter intimidation" and attempting to run the bus off the road, while the plaintiffs in the case accused them of causing "emotional distress."

Five of the six defendants were cleared in the civil lawsuit by the jury. One man, Eliazar Cisneros, whose truck bumped into a white SUV, was ordered to pay the bus driver $10,000 and $30,000 in punitive damages. None of the defendants were hit with criminal charges.

In a statement to Fox News, defendants Steve and Randi Ceh, along with Joeylynn Mesaros, described the case as politically motivated lawfare that caused great strain on their lives.

The trio told Fox News that the incident was largely "uneventful" and that the bus and the SUV were swerving in and out of traffic. According to them, the event was blown out of proportion by partisan media outlets who sought to paint Trump supporters as extremists.

"It was very friendly. I actually have tons of video of friendly encounters where we're waving on the side of the road, smiling, the bus is just driving, and the trucks are driving behind it," Mesaros recalled.

"Through the lawsuit, we did identify there were maybe one or two vehicles that were driving in a way that we wouldn't have driven. I think at worst, it's maybe a traffic citation, not anything major or extreme, certainly not a conspiracy under the Ku Klux Klan law to intimidate voters. But those people weren't sued, it was just intentionally us [and] I think that we were targeted as what they perceived maybe to be easy targets, but they couldn't have imagined that God would sustain us in this fight and we would prevail."

The plaintiffs had accused the "Trump Train" of assault, political intimidation tactics, and violating state law. They also attempted to argue that the group violated the intimidation tactics, violating state law and the federal Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act.

The statute was approved by Congress in order to protect the voting rights of black citizens, who were being targeted with political violence.

The driver of the Biden-Harris campaign bus told jurors during the trial that he felt "under attack" and feared for his life when the convoy drove by. The driver, along with former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, a campaign volunteer and a staffer, soon filed a lawsuit against the defendants. Davis claimed that she felt as though she was being "taken hostage in a way."

As for Cisneros, the driver of the pickup truck, his attorney announced that he plans to appeal. Cisneros denied driving recklessly and argued that a campaign staff member in the white SUV initiated the collision along the highway, Fox News reported.

Video leading up to the collision shows the SUV repeatedly driving in between lanes.

The Cehs stated that they were dragged into the lawsuit because they ran a Facebook page that helped organize Trump parades in the New Braunfels area, which Mesaros would also take part in. 

"I was in a company truck, so I did see it go by, and we weren't pulled into this lawsuit until a year and a half after it was filed," Steve said.

"And that is because we organized a Trump train here in New Braunfels that got pretty big, it was all grassroots. And also, I am a pastor, so the mainstream regime that we see wants to shut down all the truth. Anybody that opposes them, they want to shut it down, or they want to instill fear in all of us, so we do not speak up against them. And we just can't do that."

He added, "I don't want my grandkids to grow up in a Marxist society and right now it's leaning that way."

Randi said she was painted as ringleader due to her administrator role on the Facebook page, which boasted more than 5,000 followers at the time. "I was asked... to make a post that the Biden bus was coming through and if anybody wanted to peacefully follow it, they could. And so I put the post out, went to work and found out later that I was going to be sued for being mission control," Randi Ceh said.

The Cehs were represented by the nonprofit Citizens Defending Freedom. They compared their treatment to that of former President Trump, who has faced five politically motivated indictments in the lead-up to the election.

"We're getting the same treatment that President Trump does. We've got the gag order, we have the unfair jurisdiction, the biased Obama-appointed judge. We've got the motions in limine that prevent us from speaking the whole truth. They're not allowing us to reference the Constitution, they're watering down the definition of free speech," Mesaros said. "So by the time the jury gets its instructions, it's such a rigged sham trial. It's a complete joke and a mockery of the judicial system to leverage for their own political gain."