Election-Rigging Talk Caught On Tape, Two Dem Operatives Lose Jobs

After being caught on video tape discussing possible ways to rig elections, two influential Democratic political operatives have left the campaign. One of them, Robert Creamer, is the husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). The taped conversations, the fruits of a sting operation mounted by conservative activist filmmaker James O’Keefe, were released as part of a highly edited package, complete with spooky music and special effects, but they also include long takes in which the discussion of election dirty tricks goes on uninterrupted. In one release, the subject is how Clinton campaign operatives have systematically disrupted Trump campaign events, in part by employing such de rigeur campaign-event tactics as“bird-dogging,” but also by goading Trump supporters into violence. In another release, the operatives discuss methods of voter fraud. At one point, after the interviewer engages Creamer in a discussion about a serpentine scheme that involves busing non-residents and non-citizens in to vote, Creamer says that he wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole but seems to acknowledge that others might. An article in The Nation, written just before the final TV debate between Clinton and Trump, acknowledges the tapes reveal “some untoward things,” but says it doesn’t finds evidence that what’s discussed on the tape regarding the most damning issue, voter fraud, actually took place. In a followup article in The Huffington Post, Creamer says that the man doing the taping portrayed himself as a donor, and that instead of blowing him off he listened and tried to steer the conversation away from the phony-voter scheme. Creamer says he wants the unedited tape to be released.