A Democratic operative campaigning for Hilary Clinton has resigned after a video surfaced purportedly showing members of his organization discussing ways to incite violence at Donald Trump rallies.
Robert Creamer — the husband of Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois — said he was ‘stepping back’ from his role after conservative activist James O’Keefe released footage appearing to show senior staffers plotting ways to undermined the Republican candidate’s campaign events.
In the video, Creamer and other strategists appear to discuss ways of disrupting the Republican campaign.
They said they advised the protesters to get into situations where they would be captured on camera, producing footage that could be used at later stages of the campaign.
His staffers also appear to take credit for a violent protest in Chicago on March 11, that forced the Secret Service to cancel a Trump rally.
One operative said they had even paid mentally-ill and homeless people to take part in the demonstrations.
In a statement released on Monday, Creamer confirmed he was stepping down.
He said he was ‘unwilling to become a distraction to the important task of electing Hilary Clinton, and defeating Donald Trump in the upcoming election.’
‘As a result I have indicated to the Democratic National Committee that I am stepping back from my responsibilities working with the ampaign,’ he added.
Creamer denied that any of the scenarios discussed in the O’Keefe tape may have actually happened.
In the video released by right-wing activists Project Veritas Action, the national field director for the progressive Americans United for Change, Scott Foval, explains how anti-Trump protesters are paid.
Foval, who has since been fired, says the Clinton campaign ‘pays the DNC. DNC pays Democracy Partners, Democracy Partners pays the Foval Group, the Foval Group executes the s*** on the ground.’
‘It doesn’t matter what the friggin’ legal and ethics people say,’ Foval concludes. ‘We need to win this motherf******.’
‘We regret the unprofessional and careless hypothetical conversations that were captured on hidden cameras of a regional contractor for our firm, and he is no longer working with us,’ Creamer said of Foval.
‘While none of the schemes described in the conversations every took place, these conversations do not at all reflect the values of Democracy Partners.’
He says his staff trains protesters ‘on how to get themselves into a situation on tape, on camera, that we can use later.’
Creamer — who founded the left-wing consultancy Democracy Partners — told an undercover investigator that his organization has ‘a whole team across the country that does that … wherever Trump and Pence are gonna be.’
He said his assets on the ground include ‘consultants and people from the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party apparatus, and people from the campaign, the Clinton campaign.’
Creamer in 2005 pleaded guilty to defrauding nine different banks and other financial institutions to the tune of $2.3 million.
Barely a year after he was released from prison, Creamer went to work for President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, training volunteers.
In the tape, Creamer’s organization takes credit for a March 11 melee in Chicago during a Trump rally.
Secret Service officials called off the Republican candidate’s downtown rally that night after agents on the ground concluded that there were credible threats to Trump’s safety.
SOURCE: Daily Mail
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