Breitbart coordinated with liberal activist and organizer who disrupted GOP primary campaign events
By Hadas Gold
10/24/16 08:34 PM EDT
A liberal activist and organizer coordinated with reporters from the conservative news site Breitbart during the primaries to cover his disruptions of events for candidates such as Sen. Marco Rubio.
Aaron Black, an associate with Democracy Partners and a former Occupy Wall Street organizer, worked with the pro-Trump site Breitbart, tipping them off about his stunts, exchanging raw video and coordinating coverage, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.
Black has resurfaced recently as one of the people featured in undercover video from the Project Veritas group. In the video, he claims to work for the DNC. Though he does not appear on their payroll, his bio at Democracy Partners credits him with "working closely with the Democratic National Committee" during the 2012 election cycle. Black in the video says he helped organize violent protests in Chicago that led to Trump's cancellation of a rally there in March.
According to the source, Black coordinated with Breitbart via email, phone and in person, including when he dressed up as a robot and trolled Marco Rubio’s events. The relationship was described as very friendly. An article subsequently published on Breitbart featured video footage of a physical confrontation between Black and Rubio's New Hampshire campaign chairman.
"He worked directly with Breitbart’s political team on the ground in the primary states to sabotage Marco Rubio & Ted Cruz, and elect Trump as nominee of [the Republican] party,” the source told POLITICO. “
was coordinating with [Breitbart’s] top staff to rabble rouse against Rubio at rallies."
That Breitbart had supported Trump over Rubio and Cruz is already known. The site has been a reliable source of pro-Donald Trump material, a relationship that was made official when Breitbart chairman Stephen Bannon was appointed Trump’s campaign CEO in August. Bannon subsequently took a leave from his role at Breitbart.
But their willingness to work with a progressive activist perhaps goes to show how far they were willing to go to take down candidates, such as Rubio, whom they have described as being for “open borders" and "pro-amnesty.”
But Rubio was likely a common foe for both liberals and Breitbart. As hacked WikiLeaks emails from the Clinton campaign recently revealed, the Clinton campaign feared going up against Rubio in the general election.
Though Black is featured in the recent Project Veritas videos, none of the Breitbart write-ups on those videos – which were brought up in the last debate by Trump as evidence the DNC was coordinating disruptions at Republican campaign events – mention him by name.
Black has been interviewed by the site and has also been a guest on Breitbart’s radio programs.
In August, Yahoo News reported that Breitbart Washington editor Matthew Boyle had tried to get a progressive activist to send around a letter attacking a former Breitbart reporter —Michelle Fields — who quit the site after a confrontation with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Boyle was trying to rally progressives to protest her hiring by the Huffington Post. (The letter was never sent.)
"Aaron Black reached out to Breitbart and then we covered this and multiple other stories on our website and on our radio show on Sirius XM Patriot Channel 125," Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow told POLITICO in a statement. "Breitbart New Network is proud to work with sources from across the political spectrum to cover important and breaking news stories so that we may bring the most informative reporting to our readers. This type of reporting proves why Breitbart continues to have amazing growth with over 200 million monthly page views and 36 million monthly unique visitors. In addition, this month we launched an online store and radio show with Major League Superstar Curt Schilling.”
Rubio's office declined to comment, and Black did not return requests for comment. We were unable to get a comment from Democracy Partners, but will update this post if they respond.
Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/10/breitbart-liberal-activist-230255#ixzz4O3KlZGxq
