Is A Republican Operative Trying To Dig Up Dirt On Justin Trudeau?

Last April Andrew Scheer had a secret meeting in a secluded lodge in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, to discuss how best to defeat Justin Trudeau's Liberals. 

The day-long strategy session, held April 11 at the Azuridge Estate Hotel in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, brought together some of Calgary’s most prominent business leaders and high-profile Conservatives and their operatives at the invitation of a little-known pro-oil advocacy group called the Modern Miracle Network.

And one of the reasons it was so secret was the presence of a Republican operative with a very unsavoury reputation.



His name is Mike Roman, and he first made his reputation working for the uber right-wing Koch brothers, spying on and digging up dirt on their liberal opponents.  

The competitive intelligence team is run by a veteran Republican researcher named Mike Roman, who is listed as Freedom Partners' vice president of research on the tax filing that group publicly released on Tuesday.

Roman, who did not respond to requests for comment, has worked to keep himself and his activity low-profile even within the discreet Koch operation. 

One former network official said that when people were summoned to meetings at ASG’s offices, they sometimes had trouble finding the suite. “They told people that’s the way they liked it,” the official recalled. “They act all cloak and dagger – like the CIA. There was a joke about how hardly anyone ever met Mike Roman. It was like, if you wanted to find him, he’d be in a trench coat on the National Mall,” said the former official.

Then shortly after Donald Trump became president Roman went to work for him. 



Where once again he cultivated an air of mystery. 

Few people in or close to the White House have any idea what Michael Roman does all day.

“Within the research world, he cultivates this ‘man of the world’ mystery,” said one former administration official. “Like, he was the guy who you would talk to if you want to find a Hungarian hacker in Hong Kong.”

But although few people knew what he was really doing, this episode of fake news had already made him a minor celebrity in Republican circles.

Roman also attracted notice a decade ago for disseminating a 2008 YouTube video showing two members of the New Black Panther Party, dressed in black with berets and one nightstick, milling around a North Philadelphia polling station — a video that ended up being played on loop on the Fox News Network that year, personifying conservative fears about voter intimidation.

“The video was certainly used by political operatives to create this false impression of voter intimidation and fraud being a major problem,” said Rick Hasen, a professor who specializes in election law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.


So it's hardly surprising that there are now reports that Roman is working for our Cons, digging up dirt on Justin Trudeau.

But when reporters asked Andrew Scheer the other day, what role Roman was playing on the Con campaign, Scheer pretended he'd never heard of him.



And got really annoyed that anyone would dare ask him that question.

Which isn't surprising, considering that the ugly American Scheer needs a connection to a Republican dirty tricks operative like Roman, like he needs a hole in the head.

And then there's the embarrassing fact that Roman is the treasurer of Stephen Harper's International Democratic Union.



So the circle, or the conspiracy, is complete.

You know, ever since Scheer became Con leader I have warned that he was more American than Canadian, and more of a Republican than a Conservative.

But I was never able to get anybody in the MSM to take a closer look at who exactly are the Cons behind the curtain. And now it may be too late.

Scheer and his Republican thugs and religious fanatics are preparing to steal the election. While progressives fight themselves.

And the country we love so much could soon be just a memory...