Advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign Peter Daou, the lead editor for the liberal media news outlet ShareBlue, previously known as Blue Nation Review, launched a rallying cry on Twitter on Friday for Donald Trump to be interrogated and arrested by the United States Secret Service after the bombastic billionaire made a poorly worded but seemingly innocent comment regarding Clinton’s position on the second amendment raising the specter of use of official state violence against political dissidents.
Traci Morrison (@TraciMorrison3) September 17, 2016
The outlet formerly known as Blue Nation Review was purchased by Media Matters mogul David Brock, a close ally of the Clinton family, in the middle of the Democratic Primary turning the once progressive outlet that celebrated the contributions of both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton to the liberal cause into an attack mouthpiece that was frequently used to spread narratives about the Vermont Senator.
Blue Nation Review’s name became synonymous with attacks against Bernie Sanders leading the outlet to rebrand at the beginning of September to ShareBlue, an outlet with an identical media staff that continues to spread campaign narratives with a lens towards electioneering while holding itself out as a news outlet in order to circumvent campaign finance regulations.
Maurice Magarelli (@mauromag1) September 16, 2016
The outlet’s owner David Brock also spearheads the pro-Clinton SuperPAC Correct the Record, the only SuperPAC ever to directly coordinate with a candidate’s campaign which many legal analysts believe openly flouts campaign finance laws and restrictions, which is best known for paying staff to create nonexistent pro-Hillary Twitter accounts and bots to create the false appearance of a vibrant social media support for the former Secretary of State.
The hashtag that was circulated on Friday by Daou was #InterrogateTrump traced to a publication by ShareBlue signed "by the editors" despite the political operative saying on Twitter that it was he who started the call for Trump to be both interrogated and arrested. Many of those who responded to the hashtag were incited to call for the Republican candidate to be tortured and water boarded.
Peter Daou (@peterdaou) September 16, 2016
The call to action, which was quickly circulated by a suspicious number of bot accounts, quickly rose to the top of the Twitter trend list at a time when the social media outlet was buzzing about McClatchy News revelations that Hillary Clinton’s right-hand man Sidney Blumenthal originated the "birther" claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States with the news outlet even dispatching reporters to Kenya in the heart of the 2008 campaign cycle.
The call to arrest and interrogate Trump came in response to statements he made criticizing Hillary’s aversion to the guns and the Second Amendment suggesting that if Clinton believed that guns were unnecessary for protection then why does she surround herself with armed Secret Service officers?
W. Munsen (@Minuteman04) September 17, 2016
Once Daou was able to get the hashtag trending, presumably with the help of his boss David Brock at the Correct the Record SuperPAC, the Clinton camp and mainstream media outlets seized on Trump’s comments saying that he threatened and was alluding to the assassination of Hillary.
"I think her bodyguards should drop all weapons. I think they should disarm – what do you think? Take their guns away, she doesn’t want guns and let’s see what happens to her," said Trump.
This quote taken purely as text disregards the candidate’s playful grin and laughter of the audience which did not seem anywhere near incited to violence, but even taken solely as text it is unfathomable that the Secret Service would actually disarm making it unclear where the purported threat to Clinton is.
Then again, facts haven’t mattered much in this election.
