Activist investor Bill Ackman on Thursday appeared to defend Kyle Rittenhouse and described the young man as a “civic-minded patriot.”

“Last night, Neri and I watched several hours of .#Kylerittenhouse direct testimony and cross examination. We came away believing that #Kyle is telling the truth and that he acted in self defense,” he wrote in a social media post:

“We found him to be a civic-minded patriot with a history of helping his community as an EMT and fireman in training, in his removing hate graffiti earlier that day from a local school, and ultimately in volunteering to protect a business during the night of August 25th in Kenosha,” Ackman continued:

He explained that his first impressions of Rittenhouse were “materially different from those we had previously formed based on media reports and opinion pieces that we had consumed”:

Ackman also said media and political bias were “dividing our country and destroying lives,” adding that “While we have not heard the entire trial, based on our assessment of Kyle on the stand, we believe that he will be found innocent by the jury.”

Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old on trial for murder in Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid the Black Lives Matter riots on August 25, 2020, took the stand in his own defense last week during the ongoing trial.

Breitbart News reported:

It is rare for defendants to take the stand in their own defense, because of the risk that they might be led into damaging testimony by the tactics of prosecution attorneys. It was unknown at the start of the day whether he would do so. However, after the defense presented other witnesses, Rittenhouse took the stand, and said he had done so with the advice of counsel.

The prosecution had rested its case earlier in the week, after laying out the basic elements of the crimes with which Rittenhouse is accused. On cross-examination, however, several prosecution witnesses admitted that Rittenhouse had only fired his rifle after being pursued; one “victim,” Gaige Grosskreutz, admitted he had pointed his own gun at Rittenhouse.

In a subsequent post on Thursday, Ackman said, “Kyle Rittenhouse’s life is at risk”:

“Justice demands a fair trial. Society would benefit greatly if politics did not enter the court room and convict innocent people,” he concluded.