Right wing backers of President Donald Trump’s campaign who flooded the telephone lines of the Iowa Democratic Party this week may have received directions from The White House and Trump campaign officials.
The actions by the trolls made it impossible for Iowa precinct chairs to report caucus results.
Our sources told us this morning there are indications that someone in the White House or Trump campaign was directing the operations.
“Yes, we are starting to see clues here and there that none of that was an accident. It wasn’t just social media trolls doing their thing. We are seeing clues that it may have come from somewhere in the White House,” our source, who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
The operation began the night of the Iowa caucus when Republican trolls suddenly started posting the reporting hotlines of the Iowa Democratic Party on social media and asking their friends to call and clog up the phone lines.
“Clog the lines,” some of the trolls urged their friends on 4chan, the internet message board frequented by GOP extremists.
On Wednesday, Democratic Party leaders confirmed the phone attacks but declined to speculate on the origin.
By Friday morning however, Democratic Party leaders were saying the attack did not happen on its own. “We think it was coordinated by someone in the White House and GOP offices,” they told us.
On Wednesday Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Mandy McClure confirmed in a statement that there was an “unusually high volume of inbound phone calls to its caucus hotline, including [by] supporters of President Trump.”
She said the unexplained and at times hostile” calls “made it impossible for Precinct chairs to report the caucus results and contributed to the “delay in the Iowa Democratic Party’s collection of result.”
When confronted about the incident, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said Trump campaign officials “don’t know anything about this,” adding: “It’s laughable that they would try to blame Trump for their own incompetence.”
On 4chan, some of the trolls boasted that their actions may have succeeded adding that there should be better coordination with officials in the future.
