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For the Hillary Clinton campaign, a four-day investigation has come to a close, officials said. Aides point to emails and a screenshot, uncovered on Tuesday, as proof that Project Veritas is linked to a string of recent incidents in Iowa: undercover maneuvers to trick or provoke volunteers into doing and saying things that are illegal, inappropriate, or embarrassing.
The materials from the Clinton aides show emails to Tom D’Angora, a campaign volunteer in New York, from a woman by the same name, Allison Holmes, as one of three people linked to the alleged Iowa sting operations, named in a previous report by TIME.
In the emails, Holmes asks if she and two friends, identified as as Jamie Kingston and Michelle Harvey, could get involved in the campaign and attend a New York voter registration event on Aug. 22. (There was no such event scheduled, a campaign aide said.)
In her first email to D’Angora, according to the campaign, Holmes appears to inadvertently attach an iPhone screenshot that shows an email with “falsified information” for the Kingston friend.
The organization, founded five years ago by the activist James O’Keefe, did not deny the claims or the evidence put forward by Clinton officials.
“Project Veritas does not comment on ongoing investigations, real or imagined,” said Daniel Pollack, the group’s communications director.
On Friday, in the TIME report, Clinton aides identified Holmes as one of three women involved the Iowa incidents that, they said, had all the markings of a subversive effort to trap the supporters and volunteers.
Holmes was the name given to the campaign. The other two women went by Jess Koski and Jess Jones, Clinton aides said.
The campaign described four separate occasions involving Holmes, Koski, and Jones: It started on July 17 in Cedar Rapids, when one of the women attempted to hand a cash contribution to campaign volunteers and interns.
About a month later, on Aug. 13, one identified herself as Canadian and asked a Clinton fellow for instructions to falsify a donation.
On Aug. 19, a woman asked the campaign if her parents could give an additional $2,700 through her in order to skirt contribution limits.
Most recent was on Aug. 20, when one asked the campaign office in Des Moines whether she could refuse to help register non-Clinton supporters.
On Friday, after the fourth such occurrence, the Clinton campaign went public with their suspicion. In response, Project Veritas staffers ran a new headline on their website: “Paranoia in Hillary’s Campaign?” A blog post added, “The level of paranoid within the Clinton campaign is certainly interesting.”
“One wonders what they are hiding over at Clinton HQ, aside from perhaps a few emails,” it read.
The founder of Project Veritas, O’Keefe, is still best known for his 2009 video campaign against ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
The email exchange, which was provided to BuzzFeed News by the Clinton campaign, starts with a woman who identifies herself as Allison Holmes asking to bring a friend to a voter registration event.
Courtesy of the Clinton Campaign
Attached to that email, according to the campaign, was this screenshot.
Courtesy of the Clinton Campaign
The campaign volunteer responded to the email from Jones with information about the planned weekend of action (rather than a voter registration event) and asked for the contact information of the friend.
Courtesy of the Clinton Campaign
Holmes responded with the information for Kingston, which appeared in the screenshot that was attached to her first email.
Courtesy of the Clinton Campaign
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/1Ji2M80
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