After the August 2020 Kenosha shootings, L. Lin Wood said he had helped form #FightBack Foundation, a Texas nonprofit, with a “mission to protect and defend our Constitution on many fronts,” and that “Kyle’s defense is one of those fronts.” The Cincinnati Enquirer published that email on August 28, 2020. Wood said John Pierce would lead the defense team and asked the public to be wary of other fundraising. The Texas Comptroller listing, as the Enquirer reported it, showed the foundation incorporated effective August 12, 2020.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Wood and Pierce were not licensed in Wisconsin and that other defense lawyers questioned control of donated money. Pierce later posted Rittenhouse’s $2 million bail with FightBack funds. ABC News reported on December 7, 2020, that Wood had withdrawn from the criminal case and launched a new fundraising appeal. That is the end of the in-court representation this journal can document.
After the 2021 acquittal, Rittenhouse said in interviews that he had fired Wood and criticized the foundation’s fundraising. Wood’s foundation later sought return of bail money; Wisconsin coverage reported a later split of those funds. Those later fights are civil and public. They are not rewritten here as a morality play. The Fact sentences are: initial team, a foundation, posted bail, withdrawal in December 2020, later dispute over money.