the georgia bureau of investigations taking the stand today in the federal hate crime trial hate crimes, i should say, trial of the three men convicted of murdering ahmaud arbery. his testimony revealing new information about travis mcmichael s truck. turns out, he had a confederate flag vanity license plate and a decal of a blue confederate cross on a toolbox in the bed of his truck. that, after another agent revealed racist text messages and social-media posts from two of the defendants. joining me now, cnn legal analyst, areva martin. she is the author of awakening, ladies, leadership, and the lies we have been told. and we are glad to have you this evening. here is one of the texts one of the texts revealed during the trial. it says a friend texts travis mcmichael, quote, this cracker barrel up here is full of some other kinds of people. mcmichael replies, quote, need to change the name from cracker barrel to n-word bucket. now today, we are learning that
race until the closing argument. however, if the february trial, the federal trial and hate crimes charges, that certainly i would expect would not be the case, right? do you expect that race will be a central focus, given that it s a hate crimes charge across the board, but they will do things like focus on internet searches done by bryant or photo evidence of the vanity license plate with the confederate emblem on the pickup truck. will that really be central this time? absolutely. i think it will get a much bigger part of the case as that trial unfolds. i also think when it comes to evidence and what comes in, a lot of the evidence that you see or that you saw in the trial we just had is not going to be the same evidence that you will see put forward in the federal hate crimes case, because it s a different case and the statutes are different, and what you have to prove are different.
third defendant took video of those moments. ahmaud arbery was out jogging. the three white men charged in the death of the unarmed black men, in it, race a central factor in the case. the nation s attention on what has turned out to be a nearly all white jury. why is that? what is the potential impact? amara walker is live where this is taking place. the judge made rulings on what could be key pieces of evidence. could you explain what those are. reporter: the judge made this ruling and they represent a double blow to the defense. so basically this means that the jury will be allowed to see the image of that confederate flag on the vanity license plate mounted on the front of there was mcmichael s pickup truck, the truck he was driving the day that ahmaud arbery was shot and killed. what the jury will not be allowed to hear about, though, is the fact that ahmaud arbery was on probation the day that he was shot and killed and the