A former Barack Obama operative has amassed a team of 16,000 ‘amateur sleuths’ who are seeking to uncover dirt on key Republican candidates up for re-election this November. John Burton is his name, and he’s an angry 38-year-old former JP Morgan employee and Barack Obama opposition research guru.
Starting shortly after President Trump was elected in November 2016, Burton began assembling a team. That team’s task? Seek out damaging information on 2018 Republican candidates, namely a list of three Senate candidates, 22 House candidates, and 133 others running for state legislative positions.
His organization, called ‘Citizen Strong,’ has been operating under the radar and has been legally funded by ‘dark money’. In fact, there is barely a footprint online about this team of 16,000 individuals across the country. Burton even refuses to reveal who is backing him and who some of his top employees are, but tells Bloomberg that a major information dump is on its way that could feasibly turn both the Senate and the House blue, as well as help redraw congressional lines in 2020 by tanking Republicans in key state legislative races.
While Burton did not disclose the 158 Republicans his organization has targeted, he did reveal one name, Dana Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher is often referred to as “Putin’s favorite congressman” because of his pro-Russian stances on almost every issue.
John Burton is the Co-Founder and Political Director of Daily Action. His previous political experience includes working as a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, serving as one of the first 20 employees of Barack Obama’s 2007-2008 Presidential Campaign, and then joining the Obama Administration in Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s office. He is a graduate of Harvard, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Miami-Dade County Public Schools. John currently lives in San Francisco and recently served as Treasurer and a member of the Board of Directors of San Francisco’s LGBT Community Center.
www.netrootsnation.org/profile/john-a-burton/
h/t Mccruise