'Trump Train' trial: Defendant says convoy using 'first amendment right' during highway clash

A woman who is accused of political intimidation for being part of a convoy of former President Donald Trump supporters who surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus on a busy Texas interstate in 2020 says the incident was an exercise in free speech and was not intended to impede the progress of the bus.

Randi Ceh and her husband, Steve Ceh, are among six people being sued for swarming the bus along Interstate 35 as it made its way to a campaign event on Oct. 30, 2020.

"We used our first amendment right to drive down the highway," Randi Ceh said Monday, per the San Antonio Express-News, as the second week of the trial got underway. "We did a 'Trump Train' and it was cool."

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She described the event as an "our team versus your team" political exercise and argued they were not trying to intimidate anyone.   

The trial kicked off last week, and the seven-person jury heard from plaintiffs, including former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, who testified that she felt like she was being "taken hostage in a way," and the driver of the bus said he felt "under attack" and feared for his life. 

Davis and the driver, along with a campaign volunteer and a staffer, are suing six Trump supporters who were part of a convoy made up of dozens of pickup trucks and cars adorned with large Trump flags that converged on the bus days before the 2020 presidential election.

The plaintiffs say those Trump supporters are responsible for assault and political intimidation tactics, violating state law and the federal Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. The law aims to stop political violence and intimidation tactics and was enacted by Congress during the Reconstruction Era to protect the rights of Black men to vote by prohibiting political violence. 

The plaintiffs say the group drove recklessly and attempted to run the bus off the road. In one incident captured on video, a "Trump Train" pickup truck and a Biden campaign SUV collided while trailing the bus, although nobody was hurt. The defendants have denied driving recklessly and argue that a campaign staff member in the white SUV initiated the collision along the highway. Video leading up to the collision shows the SUV repeatedly driving in between lanes.

The lawsuit, filed in 2021, seeks punitive and compensatory damages.

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The defendants – including the Cehs, as well as Robert Mesaros, Joeylynn Mesaros, Eliazar Cisneros and Dolores Park – say they were merely supporting Trump "in a very loud way," an attorney said. The defense also argued that their clients’ actions were protected speech and that the trial is a concerted effort to "drain conservatives of their money."

On Monday, Sam Hall, an attorney for the plaintiffs, attempted to show that Ceh was aware that the convoy was impeding the progress of the bus, pointing to posts on a Facebook group by others writing "SURROUNDED" and "They did not stop! Too much Trump support so they are going straight through to Austin." 

Hall asked Randi Ceh why she did not use her ability as the Facebook group’s administrator to take down such posts, to which she cited users' First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Hall also pointed to her using the hashtag "#BlocktheBus" in her posts, per the San Antonio Express-News. 

Randi Ceh, of New Braunfels, and her husband created the Facebook page in 2020 after they moved from Las Vegas, where they had previously taken part in "flag runs" in which they organized convoys of vehicles to support then-President Trump’s re-election campaign, according to the outlet. 

She said they continued the tradition in New Braunfels, where their "Trump Trains" grew to include hundreds of vehicles, she said. One "Trump Train" on the evening of Oct. 29 – the night before the incident with the bus, including nearly 1,000 vehicles, she said.

"Every week it got bigger and bigger and bigger," she said, per the outlet.

Hall asked Randi Ceh if prior "Trump Trains" had a target or were "organized to intercept something," but Ceh shot back, saying, "It sounds like you’re saying something happened, but I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Randi Ceh said she expected the Oct. 30 "Trump Train" to be like the prior ones the husband-and-wife duo had organized and that she wasn’t even meant to be part of the convoy and only briefly joined the group because it unfolded on her way home from work, per the San Antonio Express-News

Hall, via text screenshots, also described how Ceh had updated members of the Facebook group with information about the whereabouts of the bus which she had received through a text message chain with other "Trump Train" organizers.

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He also produced posts she had made in the group referring to Democrats as "Demoncrats" and being the "epitome of evil," per the outlet.

Steve Ceh also took the stand on Monday, when Hall showed a video of the defendant at a gathering of Trump supporters in which he referred to Oct. 30 as a "good day" and called the people on the bus "socialists." He described Trump Trains consisting of "a lot of prayer, a lot of faith, a family atmosphere," per San Antonio Express-News.

The trial is scheduled to resume Tuesday.