If you are one of the few who are still perusing the offerings over at Bearing Drift, you would notice that they seem to have a single-minded purpose in preventing the nomination of Cynthia Dunbar for the 6th District Congressional seat. Their writers have posted scathing pieces about Cynthia, and they have printed every anti-Cynthia Op-Ed they can get their hands on, including a series of at least 7 Op-Eds by an individual who goes by “James Harrison.” I say goes by because he does not seem to be a real person. Unlike every other Op-Ed writer for Bearing Drift, Mr. Harrison does not have any bio attached to his pieces. The only other Op-Ed that does not have a bio attached to it is from a long-time commenter who goes by an obvious psuedonym.
Mr. Harrison seems to write exclusively about the 6th District Congressional race. Specifically, he writes hit pieces attacking Cynthia Dunbar and Scott Sayre, making all kinds of unfounded allegations about improper conduct, droning on about the minutiae of political inside baseball, and mistakenly believing ex-oficio members of a committee get an official vote. His most recent piece, however, goes beyond that and claims to have evidence that the Dunbar campaign had early access to the delegate lists. As proof, he offers a screenshot of a snippet of the Augusta County delegate list, and in front of that is a screen purportedly showing the metadata properties of that file. This metadata seems to show the file was created by Dan Moxley on March 8th, and modified on March 9th. Mr Moxley, aside from being the Secretary of the Augusta County Republican Committee, is also working for Cynthia Dunbar. Here is a screen shot from the Bearing Drift piece.
Since the delegate lists were not officially released to the candidates until April 6th, this would seem to provide concrete evidence the Dunbar campaign did indeed have early access to the Augusta county list, and lied about having it. There’s only one problem. This is one of the easiest things in the world to fake.
After getting out of politics I began a career in software development. I have worked for the past 10 years writing and maintaining computer programs for a major government contractor in the area. To demonstrate how easy this is to fake I went ahead and created my own file showing James Harrison as the creator.
First, I created a secondary user account on my computer. For my purposes I used Mr. Harrison’s name.
Second, I changed the calendar date on my computer to March 8th.
Next, I logged into my computer using the James Harrison user account and created an excel file.
After saving the file, I then changed the calendar on my computer again to March 9th, added some content to the file, and saved it again. When you check the metadata properties of that file, this is what you find:
Notice the similarities to the “evidence” presented against Dan Moxley? I then took a screen shot of the metadata in front of the excel document I created:
Or I could have positioned the metadata in front of an official delegate list, like the one I have for the 2016 10th District Convention of which I was a candidate for National Delegate:
Looks strikingly similar to the “evidence” presented against the Dunbar campaign, doesn’t it? This entire process took me about 5 minutes.
I don’t even have to resort to simple screen shots. With proper access to the delegate list, as Mr. Harrison appears to have, I could have copied and pasted the entire Augusta county list into my newly created spreadsheet with the fake metadata and, viola! Instant evidence of malfeasance by the Dunbar campaign to be shared with anyone I choose.
Could the file metadata be real? Yes, it could, but the campaigns have had this file for over a month, and any campaign worker that opened the file and made the slightest change/addition/deletion (even changing the formatting, or resizing the columns) would have changed the metadata for the “Last saved by,” and the “Date last saved” fields. In order to believe that this metadata is genuine, you have to believe that this file has been essentially untouched by the campaign since they received it. Furthermore, you would have to believe that a campaign that has been desperate to prove malfeasance by the Dunbar campaign just now thought to look at the metadata for this untouched file of critically important delegates.
Does that sound likely to you?
At this point, I think it is fair that the real identity of Mr. James Harrison is revealed. Other than a piece written by an obvious pseudonym, he is the only Op-Ed writer for Bearing Drift that does not have any biographical information connected to his pieces (I have screen shots of all of them in case BD tries to add something later, BTW). He obviously works for one of the campaigns opposing Cynthia Dunbar since he has access to the delegate lists in order to put together his “proof.” and has spent days (if not weeks) researching and writing hit pieces about alleged campaign violations that only a committed insider with knowledge of the campaign process would even care about. I have sent a request to Bearing Drift to ask for Mr. Harrison’s contact information, but have yet to receive a response.
Mr. Harrison likes to throw around claims of campaign finance violations against Cynthia Dunbar and Scott Sayre. I wonder if allowing a candidate to post obvious campaign messages on a blog without the proper “authorized and paid for” identifications would qualify as a campaign finance violation? Or should whatever campaign Mr. Harrison works for be listing Bearing Drift as an in-kind contributor? Either way, whichever candidate it is should at least have the guts to own the charges they are making.
45 comments
Thank you for this example. There seem to be several computer scandals in resent elections. The front runners attach each other while an also-ran benefits.
[…] The appeal, filed by Rockingham County Chairman, Dan Cullers, presents no new information, and repeats many of the same complaints against Scott Sayre and the Dunbar campaign that were leveled by a campaign insider posing under a fake name at Bearing Drift, including the debunked “metadata” gambit. […]
LBJ, you just have to make them deny it.
I love it that Bearing Drift lives rent free in yall’s head.
Please, Matt. I know you are still upset about Cynthia beating Suzanne for National Committeewoman, but I thought you all had just a little more integrity than to allow your blog to be a willing participant in this charade.
What’s the matter? Did Pinocchio get scared away so he sent in the second string?
Such an old line and stupid too. I believe Shaun Kenny first said that as he kicked the slats out of his crib. Boooring.
Thanks for the post.
Everyone appears to be a little wound up.
Just a little.
Perhaps BD and TBE might review their posting
and comment policy , that might be a start.
If Mr Harrison wants to rant on IMO like a drunk
Screaming inside an empty wheat silo do we need
To listen or respond ?
Really.
With every post on BD or TBE the activities of the
Characters in the Virginia Sixth on all sides look
Shaky and suspect.
I have always believed that the mere appearance
Of impropriety is enough to raise doubts.
The local party , the state party , the officials
The candidates have all dug themselves a huge pit
In the Va Sixth.
Now instead of a primary and election
It may be that the local Republican Party
Will reap the whirlwind in the fall.
No one should be surprised if the seat is lost.
I would be shocked if we lost that seat, regardless of “James Harrison’s” shenanigans.
This is why TBE needs an online gaming component. The house could clean up on a very small percentage of all the side bets.
The only way we lose CD6 is if we nominate a criminal deviant.
At there is one adult in the room. A stable full of jackasses is still just jackasses
Far be it from me to comment like a drunk in a silo (yet I swear that sometimes it seems exactly that!) but the substance of James Harrison’ posts seem entirely reasonable to me and it’s almost a matter of ‘me thinketh the Trump-nominatin’ convention delegate doth protest too much.’
There has been enough shiftiness in the 6th process to make everybody look bad, and I blame the executive committee and the SCC for not nipping this in the bud.
Personally I think that the 6th wants a ‘Judge Roy Moore’ moment in November and Cynthia ‘December’ Dunbar is just the right candidate to deliver.
Seems like the same swamp creatures that game conventions reinforce each other like Deep State DC.
They are all Shak. Remember #Harrisonburg
Deleting my rebuttal is an admission of defeat. Don’t worry, I already screenshotted it.
What rebuttal was deleted? All of your comments are still here.
No one deleted anything, only Steve or I can do that and we very rarely do. Mick contacted me about the problem. It was a Disgus mistake and it has been rectified. Your long post is now visible.
Here is the folly of your premise: if what I reported about the metadata is not true, then it is very easy to say that and prove it with a single screenshot of the Augusta delegate list. If what I reported is not true, then Dunbar’s campaign should have sent you that screenshot and saved you all that time you spent spent cooking up a wild hypothetical.
This claim is very easily proven or disproven. Dozens of people have these lists. The staffer’s name either appears in the copy sent to everyone, or it doesn’t.
What has been shown through tangible evidence cannot be dismissed with wild speculation.
I just showed how easy it is to fake your so-called proof. I showed people exactly how to do it, and now your response is that all of the other candidates who are running against Cynthia can provide their own screen shots and that will make it true? Please.
Why haven’t any of the campaigns opposing Cynthia been able to provide a single shred of evidence showing the Dunbar campaign contacted any delegate of theirs before the lists were publicly released? What good does it do her campaign to have the lists early but sit on them without using them to contact delegates? Why risk the kind of scandal to get the lists early but never use them?
I’m just about done humoring you. If you don’t provide any evidence that you are who you say you are soon, I am going to post the screenshots I have of those two campaign workers, and then they and their boss can make their denials
The attachment should be in everyone’s original email. Should be easily verified.
I haven’t been to BD in a while. I think BD now stands for Becoming Democrats.
Bearings Adrift
Bearing Moderate which would make it…
James Harrison here, responding to your false and borderline defamatory post.
• I have never and will never receive one dime in pay or reimbursement from any of the candidates in this race or any PACs supporting them. Full stop.
• The screenshots are 100% authentic and the file was not edited. As I noted, every campaign may verify this information on their own – and they will. Everyone has an identical copy of that same tainted list.
• Dunbar’s campaign has not offered any factual evidence suggesting that anything I have written is false, on this or any other piece.
• Dunbar’s campaign cannot and will not respond to these allegations because they are true. When a candidate faces a false accusation, they deny it unequivocally, not use surrogates to raise phony doubts.
• If the list was faked, as you falsely suggest, Dunbar would have put out a statement saying such. She won’t, because that compounds the lie.
• If the Dunbar staffer in question did not create, edit, or see that list, then he could issue a statement on Facebook in five minutes denying it. Will he do that?
Have you even asked Dunbar’s campaign if that staffer handled the list in March?
Dunbar has already lost if her only recourse is enlisting an out-of-district blogger in a feeble attempt to shoot the messenger.
What about her being on Sayre’s payroll? What about her paying half the district’s budget to her friends as speaking fees? What about the massive campaign finance violations going on in the district?
This is not an isolated incident for her campaign. It is a pattern of behavior.
People are speaking out because they are sick and tired of insider swamp behavior carried on by party bosses. This is one big reason why Donald Trump won the Republican nomination.
I know you remember that 2016 convention in Harrisonburg, when Cynthia Dunbar and her #NeverTrump allies conspired in smoke-filled backrooms to stack the RNC delegation 10-3 in favor of Cruz, despite Trump winning Virginia’s presidential preference primary? Remember how they tried to press for 13-0 and held the convention up for hours hoping to stack the deck for her candidate?
She is up to it again and people will not stand for it.
Dunbar is going to lose because the truth will set these delegates free of the unethical behavior and blatant falsehoods she is using to run out the clock in the hopes she can win the nomination before she faces real scrutiny.
Scrutinizing candidates is what our media is supposed to do. Since they will not vet her, I will.
(TBE moderators may contact me via email to verify the authenticity of this post)
Hi, “James.” You know, you are really not helping your cause to prove you are, indeed, a “real boy” there, Pinocchio, when you create a brand new Disqus account with a single comment to your name, using a proxy server to hide your location, and a ProtonMail.com email account which is an anonymous, encrypted email account from a company based in Switzerland. All of that screams, “I’m not who I say I am.”
You complain that I am outside the district. Does that mean you live in the 6th District? If so, are you registered as a delegate to the 6th District convention? You must be if you have taken such an interest in this race. Would any of the other campaigns be able to easily verify that you are a delegate to the 6th District convention?
Why don’t any of your posts on Bearing Drift have any biographical information? Any information about yourself you would like to share?
You mention the 2016 RPV convention in Harrisonburg. Were you a delegate to that convention? You must have been if you remember all the “shenanigans,” right? Would it surprise you to know that I have friends that have access to that full convention list? If I call and ask them, will they find a James Harrison registered as a delegate to that convention?
Next time come back with something a little more tangible. Until then, if I was the Dunbar campaign I would treat your accusations the same way most people treat Bearing Drift these days. Ignore them.
Boom goes the dynamite.
Dunbar’s campaign cannot respond with facts because the evidence speaks for itself. That is why it appears they sent you to shoot the messenger, which is the last refuge of a desperate and failing campaign which has no other leg to stand on. You have nothing tangible. I do. That is the difference.
How did I know I could get you to do that again? Simple. If Dunbar had given you any substantive rebuttal, you would have used it.
The campaign was eagerly issuing denials about the lists before any evidence came out. Now, they have gone silent. Why not simply repeat those denials unless they are caught and they know it?
You won’t be successful in making this about me because the issue is about Cynthia Dunbar, her credibility, and the way she has run her race. She is the one on the ballot and the one who must be vetted before representing this party in high office.
Go ahead, respond to my facts – if you can. I welcome a debate over Dunbar’s qualifications for US Congress. That is the debate of import, and try as she might, her amateurish campaign will not be successful in trying to distract and misdirect delegates from the issue which actually matters, which is Cynthia Dunbar.
Until then, tell Cynthia to put away the checkerboard. We are playing chess.
Well, I am not a member of Cynthia’s campaign, so whatever she does is up to her. I have never taken an official position on this campaign, since I like both Cynthia and Ben Cline, but the attacks and the smear campaign that has been run against Cynthia has definitely pushed me over to her side over Ben. I believe that not only is she going to win the convention, but the ferocity and the regularity of the attacks by her opponents tells me they know it, too.
So here’s a question for you, Pinocchio (that’s your name until you can provide any proof you are who you say you are). Why should I bother to refute any of your “evidence” when you hide behind a fake name? You want me and everyone else to take your accusations seriously. You want people to trust you. But you refuse to provide any evidence as to your real identity. When asked very simple, point blank questions, you dodge them and refuse to answer. In fact, your response to my questions simply solidifies the fact that you are not who you say you are.
The real scandal here is not the made up charges against Cynthia, or the stringing together of different data points to try and create a fake scandal. The real scandal is one of the campaigns against Cynthia having a blog print verbatim the attacks it wants to make against Cynthia while not wanting to get their hands dirty.
As I said in reply to another comment here a little bit ago, I have screen shots of two campaign workers for one of the campaigns opposing Cynthia talking about and quoting James Harrison, linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Should I add those screen shots as an update to this piece? I’m sure everyone will know what campaign they work for.
Here is what you are either missing or ignoring: everything I have said is independently verifiable. Facts stand on their own two feet.
I publish evidence so everyone can draw their own conclusions if they do not agree with I see going on in this race. I am asking people to look at the evidence which has been transparently shared for the sake of public debate. You are asking people to take you at your word, but you do not have anything to back it up.
As Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.”
Cynthia Dunbar is asking for everyone’s blind trust.
I am reporting things which can be verified.
Well, here is a fact that is easily refuted, Pinocchio. You wrote an entire piece about how Cynthia Dunbar “funneled money” to her friend, Dinesh D’Souza and that, because she was a member of the 6th District Committee, she should have reported her relationships as some sort of conflict of interest (btw, I know a lot of Republican committees that would love to have Dinesh D’Souza speak at their event).
There are a number of problems with that piece, but the most glaring one is that Cynthia is only an ex-oficio member of the 6th District Committee. As an ex-oficio member, she has no vote. No vote means no obligation to report any so-called conflict of interest. I also have a hard time understanding how being friends with someone constitutes a conflict of interest, nor having disclosed the friendship, the other committee members would have voted against having Mr. D’Souza speak at their event.
Want to provide any evidence of your real identity yet, Pinocchio?
Hmmmm I know someone who uses that Reagan phrase all the time….
Thanks for saying this. Like you I’m a fan of both Ben Cline and Cynthia Dunbar and Elliot Pope. Can’t people just want a clean process without being labeled a Dunbar clone?
I also was pushed to Cynthia’s team by the behavior of Ben Cline supporters. They are Ms. Dunbar’s best asset. From my conversations with other undecideds, our experience is not unique.
Really? Switching candidates because of crazy supporters? And you guys are the best and the brightest selecting the nominee? Have you not been to a recent state convention?
I’ve been to dozens of state and district conventions in my 35 years of activity in Virginia Republican politics. What is your point? If the supporters of a particular candidate are jerks, it hurts the candidate. This is common sense.
Point is you can’t throw a dime at one of our conventions and not hit crazy — In the 6th they seem to be mostly all in leadership. Fringe attracts fringe. What are you going to do? Club them and drag them into a closet??
We haven’t “gone silent.” We’ve just chosen to take our message to the people. We’re busy with our delegates and we suggest others do the same rather than spend time on fake news. Though I can say, Polly Jefferson understand this play.
No, you are not playing chess. You are playing lie, cheat and steal to win votes. Not impressive. I am very disappointed in the Cline campaign.
Why is all of the blame, here, falling on the only nominee would a decade’s record of an overwhelming majority of conservative votes cast?
Ben Cline is great. He shouldn’t be letting his campaign do this.
That’s the trouble with Pittsburgh Steeler linebackers. No sooner do they retire than they start causing problems on political blogs.
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000926603/article/steelers-great-james-harrison-announces-retirement
I have a couple of screen shots from Facebook where two people working on the campaign of one of Cynthia’s opponents talk about James Harrison, the linebacker. I wonder if I should add them to this story as an update?
Why so focused upon secret identity style rather than #NEVER Trump substance?
Hello, anonymous troll. The difference between you and Pinocchio is that everyone knows you are posting anonymously. He is claiming that James Harrison is his real name, but does not want to provide any evidence to back that up. Furthermore, his activities and access to 6th District delegate lists show he is working for one of Cynthia’s opponents, and wants to continue to use his fake identity to smear Cynthia’s campaign in a way that can’t be traced back to the campaign he works for.
Thank you. It means something to be recognized for a creative pseudonym and reputation.
I’ve already seen the antics of the 6th — they should have forfeited their hosting of the convention — a real State party would have stepped in to shut down chicanery with SCC oversight… but that’s too hard when they can’t scrape together guts to condemn Medicaid expansion.
…. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7a50ef6ce0eefd5c04ff3950b2a148d1ff2b6d2d6f3485f976c22587a7a01c14.jpg