• Kyle Rittenhouse hits out at ‘insane’ former attorney Lin Wood, the Atlanta-based defamation lawyer who was fired from the Illinois teen’s legal team
  • Rittenhouse says it was Wood and another ex-lawyer, John Pierce, who arranged for him to meet members of the Proud Boys in a Wisconsin bar in January
  • A photo of Rittenhouse and the Proud Boys shows the teen making an ‘okay’ hand gesture which some believe is a symbol of white supremacy
  • Rittenhouse says the photo was one of the reasons he decided to fire Wood and Pierce, who were ‘putting me in situations…with people I don’t agree with’
  • Rittenhouse is currently in a legal battle with Pierce and Wood over the $2million in bond money that the former attorneys claim belongs to their foundation
  • The photo of Rittenhouse and the Proud Boys was used by prosecutors during the trial to claim that the Illinois teen was a white supremacist
  • White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the photo was one of the reasons that President Joe Biden referred to Rittenhouse as a ‘white supremacist’ 
  • Psaki said on Biden’s thoughts of the case: ‘He has obviously condemned the hatred and division and violence from groups like the Proud Boys’
  • Rittenhouse has accused Biden of ‘defamation’ and ‘malice.’ He said he is considering legal action against the president

Kyle Rittenhouse says that he did not know he was posing with members of the far-right group Proud Boys and that he had no idea the hand gesture he was making symbolized white supremacy as he blamed former attorney Lin Wood for the mishap.

Rittenhouse insists he didn’t know the meaning of the ‘okay’ hand gesture, which he made as he was photographed standing alongside members of the Proud Boys at a bar in Wisconsin on January 5.

‘I didn’t know that the “okay” hand sign was a symbol for white supremacy – just as I didn’t know those people in the bar were Proud Boys,’ Rittenhouse says.

The Illinois teen who was acquitted in the fatal shootings of two men and the wounding of a third during the Kenosha riots in August of last year says it was Wood who set up the picture.

The meetings ‘were set up by my former attorney who was fired because of that, for putting me in situations like that with people I don’t agree with,’ Rittenhouse told Ashleigh Banfield of NewsNation.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Wood seeking comment in response to Rittenhouse’s claims.

Banfield’s full length interview with Rittenhouse airs on Tuesday night beginning at 10pm Eastern time, 9pm Central.

That photo was used by Kenosha prosecutors during the trial. They attempted to portray Rittenhouse as a white supremacist who was motivated to shoot supporters of Black Lives Matter.

Rittenhouse is seen in the photo making the ‘okay’ sign at Pudgy’s Pub in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, which is about 15 miles northwest of Kenosha.

He says that it was another former attorney, John Pierce, who ‘arranged’ the group of Proud Boys, even though Pierce himself wasn’t there.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Pierce seeking comment.

‘I found out they were Proud Boys when I saw the headlines,’ Rittenhouse told NewsNation.

‘I thought they were just a bunch of, like, construction dudes based on how they looked.’

Rittenhouse said that his ex-attorneys raised the possibility of having the Proud Boys provide security, but that idea was quashed because the Illinois teen didn’t ‘want anything to do with them.’

He said Wood, a prominent defamation lawyer from Atlanta who is known as a fierce supporter of Donald Trump, was ‘insane.’

Rittenhouse said he fired Wood partly due to the lawyer’s belief in QAnon conspiracy theories.

‘[Wood] thinks he’s God,’ Rittenhouse said.

‘And he just says all these weird things like, “We’re going to keep that boy in jail, because there’s not going to be any civil or criminal cases come the election,” which is just complete insanity.’

Rittenhouse told Banfield that he was ‘considering changing my name.’

He also joked that he might grow a beard and lose weight in order so that people won’t recognize him.