The White House dodged questions Wednesday on why a Democratic political operative, who has a felony record and was recently accused of supporting violence at Donald Trump’s rallies and voter fraud, visited the White House hundreds of times over the course of President Obama’s time in office.
Robert Creamer, the husband of Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, said Tuesday he is “stepping back” from helping Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He made that decision after conservative activist James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, released a video showing Creamer and another Democratic activist purportedly talking about ways to incite violence at Trump campaign rallies.
When asked Wednesday why Creamer had visited the White House so many times over the course of Obama’s tenure, spokesman Josh Earnest deflected.
“I’ve been asked about the videos that have come from this outlet in the past and each time I’ve tried to urge people to take those reports not at face value and not just with a grain of salt, but with a whole package of salt,” Earnest said, adding that the videos do not usually reflect the “truth.”
Earnest said he didn’t think Obama and Creamer have “much” of a relationship and would not describe Creamer as a “friend” of the president’s.
“I’m not sure that I can describe [the relationship] because I’m not sure that there is much of one,” he said. “I know that they’ve met before.”
He told reporters he would look into the matter and provide more information about the reasons why Creamer was at the White House, meeting with Obama and going there with such frequency. “We welcome that kind of accountability,” Earnest said.
Earnest readily condemned Creamer’s discussion with another Democratic operative, Scott Foval, about methods to incite violence that the Project Veritas video appears to expose. Americans United for Change, where Foval served as national field director, fired him Monday.
“I know there was the suggestion that it might be a clever organizing tactic to incite political violence at rallies …,” Earnest said. “That is entirely inconsistent with the president’s views about political organizing … We should have so much confidence in the power of persuasion of our arguments that we shouldn’t have to resort to violence.”
The DNC, Earnest said, has “utterly disavowed those tactics” so “there should be no misunderstanding.”
“The use of violence of any other things that could be construed as a dirty trick is not condoned by the president of the United States,” he added.
Creamer spent five months in federal prison in 2006 for tax evasions and $2.3 million in bank fraud in relation to his operation of public interest groups in the 1990s.
In the Project Veritas’ “Rigging the Election” videos, produced by O’Keefe, an undercover filmmaker posing as a donor attempts to engage Foval and Creamer in discussions of efforts to commit voter fraud and other dirty tricks to hurt Trump at the polls in November.
Creamer didn’t engage, but Foval talked about several plots, implicating Creamer in the process. Foval openly discussed planting people at Trump rallies to incite violence, and said those people are trained and armed with scripts.
“I mean honestly, it is not hard to get some of these a—holes to pop off,” Foval said in the video. “It’s a matter of showing up, to want to get into the rally, in a Planned Parenthood T-shirt. Or, Trump is a Nazi, you know? You can message to draw them out, and draw them to punch you.”
In a statement, Creamer denied trying to plot violent disruptions to Trump’s campaign, but said he was resigning from any work for the DNC or campaign because he is “unwilling to become a distraction to the important task of electing Hillary 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 campaign,” he said, noting that he was “fully integrated” in the Clinton campaign.
He also argued that O’Keefe was making “outrageous” claims and referred to him as a “right-wing blogger.”
“We have always adhered to the highest standards of transparency and legality in our work for the DNC,” he said.
