The Rubio campaign is up in arms today over an email that went out in Hawaii this morning touting a CNN report from yesterday that suggested Rubio advisors were telling him to get out of the race. We reported on that CNN story here as well as the fact that it is in dispute by the Rubio campaign even though CNN appears to be standing by the story.

Here’s the email:

Rubio campaign claims Cruz campaign is sending emails suggesting Rubio is dropping out pic.twitter.com/W45dyBW2JH — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 8, 2016



Technically the email wasn’t debunked but the story does have some problems, namely that CNN suggested having multiple sources in the article but later said they had one source. CNN is standing by the story.

The domain associated with the email address that is listed on the email in question belongs to a Ted Cruz volunteer in Hawaii:

Person listed as registering https://t.co/y0BzzHPMGj is on Cruz’s HI leadership team https://t.co/QoppmDBmXe pic.twitter.com/YMwvpJGgU4 — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 8, 2016









Ted Cruz’s campaign reacted quickly to the emergence of the email, saying they had nothing to do with it:

@ZekeJMiller this is absolutely not from the Cruz campaign. — Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA) March 8, 2016

Cruz campaign is emphatic that they had nothing to do with the website/email — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 8, 2016



Shortly thereafter, the Cruz campaign released a statement charging that the email was sent out by volunteers in Hawaii and that it was completely unauthorized by the campaign. Campaign lawyers basically gave a cease and desist order to the same campaign volunteers regarding the use of Ted Cruz’s logo going forward.

Cruz camp statement pic.twitter.com/0IVcqNXpUm — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 8, 2016



Let’s be clear. The CNN report was a legitimate report they published on their website yesterday and touted on their news channel. It wasn’t fake or a fictitious report. The fact that it is in dispute doesn’t take away from this reality.

However given the Iowa CNN nontroversy that other campaigns were quick to seize on, these volunteers should have known better than to do this, especially without the explicit permission of the campaign. Ted Cruz doesn’t need anymore nontroversy headaches.

Of course, the dishonest Trump campaign will likely jump on this like they did the Iowa nontroversy and make a mountain out of a molehill, lying that Ted Cruz personally ordered the email or something to that effect. Yeah, you know it’s coming.

Ugh.