A Fox affiliate in Nashville, TN, caught the spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party in a boldfaced lie about the explosive Project Veritas video released by James O’Keefe last week. Campaign staffers for the Tennessee Democrat Senate nominee were caught on tape admitting that the supposedly moderate candidate was brazenly lying when he recently claimed that he would have voted to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.
An undercover journalist for Project Veritas went to Bredesen’s West End Nashville campaign office and recorded various staffers admitting that he lied to hoodwink moderate Republicans into voting for him. Most polling shows Bredesen behind in a race against conservative Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn.
According to Fox News 17, Tennessee Democratic spokesperson Mark Brown claimed that the Bredesen campaign workers captured on video were interns and volunteers, not paid staff.
Brown told that lie to Fox 17 News after the video was released on Wednesday. Brown said the volunteers in the video are not campaign staffers. FOX 17 News was told the people in the video are State Democratic Party volunteers making calls and doing door knocking campaigns for various democratic candidates.
“This fake volunteer used secret video recording equipment to capture uninformed and speculative comments made last weekend by college students and youth organizers,” Brown told reporters. In an email to Fox 17, Brown claimed that that the volunteer was a plant sent by Blackburn’s campaign.
“It’s sad that Congresswoman Blackburn and her allies decided to take advantage of young interns and attack them, but that’s the Washington way,” he said in the email.
However Fox 17’s Harriet Wallace dug up Federal Election Commission documents showing that the people on video are indeed paid staffers for the state party.
FOX 17 News @ 5:30📺 Undercover video by a conservative group claims to show Bredesen staff saying the candidate lied about an issue. The State Democratic Party says those shown in the video are just volunteers and interns, but a FOX 17 investigation reveals otherwise. pic.twitter.com/YHv0hSi72A
— FoxNashville (@FOXNashville) October 12, 2018
When Wallace presented the evidence to Brown, he quickly “changed his story.”
“Can you understand how that was misleading?” the reporter asked Brown in a cringe-inducing face-to-face interview.
“Oh yeah, and again, I apologize. We weren’t attempting to mislead anyone,” he insisted. The best spin Brown could come up with was that he meant the people in the background of the video were “probably volunteers” — not the ones doing the talking.
“I’m not sure how you confuse a question about individuals in a video — and you talk about people in the background that aren’t speaking,” a Tennessee Republican commented.
Republicans have heaped criticism upon Brown in the past for bashing Christians, supporters of President Donald Trump and even country musicians, often with expletives on Twitter.
One of many uniquely vulgar quotes from Brown was: “If forced to pick my favorite mainstream country act, I would gouge out my eardrums with a f—ing icepick.”
In now deleted tweets, Brown also called Trump voters “idiots,” and called President Trump “Putin’s b*tch” and a “f*ckstick,” the Washington Free Beacon reported in July. More recently, Brown said he views “white male” gun owners as “the biggest terrorist organization on the planet.”
🚨Tennessee Voters🚨 #WalkAway from @PhilBredesen in the 2018 Senate Race. Meet Bredesen’s Spokesperson,👇 Democrat Warrior Mark Brown. A prime example of why people are #walkingaway from the hate and anger of the left. Vote for a common sense candidate vote for @MarshaBlackburn pic.twitter.com/L3Ut8qBLtW
— Mark (@realbamamark) August 1, 2018
Marsha Blackburn’s campaign told Fox 17 that in addition to Brown’s history of making controversial remarks about the president, he has now “been caught point blank lying to Tennesseans, all while Phil Bredesen has remained silent.”
The Tennessee Republican Party published the Fox 17 broadcast on YouTube:
A WJHL report published by the Tennessee Republican Party features Bredesen using the same line Brown used characterizing the staffers O’Keefe caught on tape as “young people” who were taken advantage of.
“I think that’s a reprehensible way to treat young people,” he said.
“Nice try, @PhilBredesen campaign – but your spokesperson seems to be adding to your web of lies and even the press is calling him on it,” muckraker O’Keefe wrote on Twitter.
"The State Democratic Party says those shown in the video are just volunteers and interns, but a FOX 17 investigation reveals otherwise." Nice try, @PhilBredesen campaign – but your spokesperson seems to be adding to your web of lies and even the press is calling him on it. https://t.co/u2zUP4Tspt
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 15, 2018
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