A senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) presidential campaign accused the nonprofit news organization VTDigger.org on Thursday of “helping to uphold” systemic racism.
The adviser, former Sanders campaign manager and Senate chief of staff Jeff Weaver, made the charge as VTDigger reported on the past criminal conviction of another Sanders aide, Chuck Rocha, who is Latino.
“Sadly, like too many others in our society, the Vermont Digger wants to brand people like Chuck Rocha for life — an attitude that disproportionately impacts black and brown people and poor people,” Weaver told the online news outlet in a written statement. “This is just another way systemic racism works. It’s disappointing that VTDigger is helping to uphold it.”
In an interview Friday with Seven Days, VTDigger founder and editor Anne Galloway rejected the claim and called Weaver’s words “a bullying tactic.”
“These are the kind of tactics you’d expect from the Trump administration,” she said.
The story in question, written by reporter Kit Norton, focused on Rocha’s recent work negotiating a first-of-its-kind union contract for Sanders campaign staffers. It noted that Rocha had been convicted in 2013 of embezzling funds from the United Steelworkers union, for which he had previously served as political director.
As Politico reported in February 2016, Rocha pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement and accepted responsibility for 17 other counts after he was caught diverting funds and falsifying records. Rocha used the money for Stanley Cup Final tickets, golf trips to Florida and South Carolina, and travel to London. As part of his plea deal, according to Politico, he was barred from serving as an officer of a labor union until 2026.
The Sanders campaign did not make Rocha available for comment.
In an interview with Seven Days, Weaver said his statement had been “a very measured response” and not “an indictment of VTDigger as an institution.”
Asked whether he believed news outlets should never report on the criminal backgrounds of senior presidential campaign aides, Weaver said, “I didn’t say they didn’t have the right to write it. I didn’t say they shouldn’t write it. I just made the observation that when you engage in this kind of call-out reporting on a story that’s been previously reported … all it does is reinforce an unfair system.”
Weaver said that while he had not spoken to Sanders himself about the matter, he had been speaking for the campaign when he made the remarks to VTDigger. “I will tell you that [Sanders] is a big believer in people having second chances … And that’s why, on our campaign, we have given many people second chances and will continue to do so.”
According to Galloway, Rocha’s ethnicity did not factor — and should not have factored — into VTDigger’s decision to cover his past wrongdoing. She said it was newly relevant because he’d been negotiating a union contract. “We weren’t thinking about his race,” she said. “We were thinking about the conviction and what that meant in this context.”
Galloway said her organization had been called plenty of things over the years — including “the National Enquirer,” by former governor Peter Shumlin — but that this was “definitely a new line of attack.”
“It’s not like we’re a bunch of babies here,” she said. “We have pretty thick skin.” But, she said, Weaver’s allegation was the latest in a “pattern” of negative behavior from the campaign.
“Weaver has been belittling and nasty to us on the phone, so this isn’t the first time,” Galloway said.
Weaver declined to directly address Galloway’s counter-charges. He did go out of his way to note that he’s “not a regular reader of VTDigger.”
“I’m trying to remember the last time I talked to Anne Galloway,” he said. “Maybe never.”
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VTDigger does pretty good work, they are way way better than the local print and broadcast sycophants and corporate stenographers that pose as journalists.
I do wish Bernie would dump Jeff Weaver . . he is a creepy guy, as in Mike Pence, Steve Mnuchin, Stephen Miller loitering in the airport Men’s Room level of creepy. Rocha needs to be made available to answer any questions so this can get cleared up.
But, rejoice all you Wall Street worshiping Democrats . . “Status Quo” Joe Biden is here to save you from all of this rampaging “socialism” that is cropping up all over the place. Bernie will get kneecapped again by the DNC. MSNBC is all in on Joe, all you have to do is watch.
Also, if someone ever gets the chance to ask Weaver “Were you a Marine?” please do. He has been encouraging that myth for a long time. The truthful answer would be “No, never”.
If Anne Galloway had curbed her instincts and left Trump out of this, she would have done herself a lot of good.
Galloway, VTDigger editor, resorted to her weakest side by invoking Trump to try to defend her publication against charges of racism.
“These are the kind of tactics you’d expect from the Trump administration,” she was quoted as saying.
Bernie’s campaign is doing a fine job self-immolating without giving Donald Trump credit.
Sanders lost the black vote in 2016 and he’s about to do so again – if he gets that far.
He does a fine job alienating blacks – with no help from Trump, thank you very much.
For a Sanders aide to accuse VTDigger of racism shows how desperate the campaign is.
VTDigger may be a lot of things, but racist isn’t one of them.
There is a huge chasm of difference between this suggestion from Mr. In-over-his-head Weaver and the huge service Trump has provided to the American people by exposing the blatantly biased misinformation campaign we see from the likes of CNN, MSNBC and their liberal ‘journalists’.
We owe President Trump a huge thank you for exposing the lies Jim Acosta, Brian Williams and their ilk like to feed us on behalf of their democrat puppet masters.
Anne Galloway should know this, yet fails to recognize the obvious truth.
Well now, I guess we can all agree that a frivolous, barely-noticed wall painting in an alley in Burlington is the single most important problem facing Vermonters of color today. It’s the terrible, evil, magical force that is behind all racism in Vermont, even if, like 99% of Vermonters, you’ve never seen it and never will.
I must be ignorant. I didnt know he was a minority until Weaver made it an issue. I just thought he was a thief. Latino, by definition and common usage is not a racial term. It refers to ethnicity and culture and includes all races and combinations thereof.
Well now, since SEVEN DAYS is a paper for & about the Liberal sissies in Chittenden County in either case I will add my Conservative Non-Chittenden County 2 cent opinion here… Bernie Sanders is as real as a $3 dollar bill.
That he would even remotely associate himself or his make believe presidential campaign with the likes of a convicted felon speaks volumes. Mr Weaver is simply playing the racist card against VTDigger & has absolutely ZERO merit. No story here… Rocha is/was a convicted Steelworkers Union Embeziller hired by the Bernie Sanders campaign, end of story & kudos to VTDigger for reporting on it…
Whoa there Sara Vaclavik,
That is an attempt at historical revision worthy of Stalin. Culcleasure is a two time convict with multiple narcotics felonies, a violent assault on a witness by Mr. Culcleasure, his admission in court that before coming to Vermont he sold crack for Mr. “Boo” Hickman in New York, then moved to Vermont to again sell crack for “Boo”, the gun found in his apartment during his second narcotics arrest in 1998, and god only knows what else. He ruined uncounted lives by getting people addicted to his garbage, and has never once taken responsibility for it. Years later, after he should have matured, he blames his behavior on all those white kids who kept asking him for drugs.
He absolutely should be publicly held accountable, not just in an election but in every single one of his remaining days.
Weaver, nothing upholds systemic racism like that parade mural in Burlington that Bernie refuses to withdraw from. By his inclusion he sends a white supremacist message.
Weaver, Bernie, and Senate staff in Burlington Office see no racism in the parade mural of exclusively white notables that Bernie is part of. The lack of recognition of notable non-white people is not the worst part — the portrayal of a generic Native Ametican as small and subservient to the larger than life white colonizer is despicably racist as well as inaccurate Vermont history.
Weaver, nothing upholds systemic racism like that parade mural in Burlington that Bernie refuses to withdraw from. By his inclusion he sends a white supremacist message.
Weaver, Bernie, and Senate staff in Burlington Office see no racism in the parade mural of exclusively white notables that Bernie is part of. The lack of recognition of notable non-white people is not the worst part — the portrayal of a generic Native Ametican as small and subservient to the larger than life white colonizer is despicably racist as well as inaccurate Vermont history.