Vice DC bureau chief Shawna Thomas told Jon Karl of ABC News on Sunday that some organizations placed their paid staff and consultants among the protesters against now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. From Newsbusters:
“So, Vice News actually spent a lot of time with the protesters over this past week. We saw the President say these were professional protesters paid by George Soros est. est.,” Karl mocked. “Who were these people, what was going on?”After talking about following the efforts of a group of Native-Americans talking with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (R), Thomas shifted to talking about those who “organized”. “And that moment with Jeff Flake on the Hill, we talked to one woman who worked for Ultraviolet who was paid. She helped steer people in the right ways to be able to confront senators,” she admitted.“So, there were paid…” Karl trailed off seemingly dumbfounded as Thomas continued. “There were people who were paid by organizations like Ultraviolet to try to harness that energy in a way that would make the viral moments that we ended up seeing,” she said.
Thomas shared this video from Vice that shows “the efforts of some of these protest organizers.” However, she stressed to Karl that a lot of the protesters “were normal people who were mad.”
The video shows Melissa Byrne, who is a “full time progressive activist.” Newsbusters continued:
Vice documented how she led a group of protesters through the Capitol’s many hallways to track down and ambush GOP Senators, she even took a group to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s D.C. area residence and shouted for him to come out.“I wanted to make it so that they couldn’t walk, the Senators, couldn’t walk anywhere without seeing one of us,” Byrne told Vice. The video also showed how pleasant she was with Democratic lawmakers but would crank up the emotion on a whim, seemingly coming to the point of tears, when confronting GOP Senators. Not the best evidence against the President’s claim.
Thomas pointed out the protesters who swarmed Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) on the Hill before the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the floor.
Remember, Flake said he would vote for Kavanaugh. Right before the vote he caused a stir when he announced he would vote yes in the committee, but not on the floor unless the FBI investigated the sexual abuse allegations against Kavanaugh. Many have pointed to the protesters as the reason for his about face.
Thomas said Vice “talked to one woman who works for UltraViolet who was paid — she helped steer people in the right ways to be able to confront senators.”
Previous reports claimed that women who confronted Flake and other politicians at the airport belong to the group Center for Popular Democracy.
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