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Breitbart coordinated with liberal activist and organizer who disrupted GOP primary campaign events

A liberal activist and organizer coordinated with reporters from the conservative news site Breitbart during the primaries to cover his disruptions of events for candidates such as Sen. Marco Rubio.

Aaron Black, an associate with Democracy Partners and a former Occupy Wall Street organizer, worked with the pro-Trump site Breitbart, tipping it off about his stunts, exchanging raw video and coordinating coverage, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.

Black has resurfaced recently as one of the people featured in undercover video from the Project Veritas group. In the video, he claims to work for the Democratic National Committee. Though he does not appear on their payroll, his bio at Democracy Partners credits him with "working closely with the Democratic National Committee" during the 2012 election cycle. Black in the video says he helped organize protests in Chicago that led to Trump's cancellation of a rally there in March.

According to the source, Black coordinated with Breitbart via email, phone and in person, including when he dressed up as a robot and trolled Marco Rubio’s events. The relationship was described as very friendly. An article subsequently published on Breitbart featured video footage of a physical confrontation between Black and Rubio's New Hampshire campaign chairman.

"He worked directly with Breitbart’s political team on the ground in the primary states to sabotage Marco Rubio & Ted Cruz, and elect Trump as nominee of [the Republican] party,” the source told POLITICO. “[Black] was coordinating with [Breitbart’s] top staff to rabble rouse against Rubio at rallies." (It's not clear what was done regarding Cruz and Breitbart says they never did cover Black's activities against Cruz).

That Breitbart had supported Trump over Rubio and Cruz is already known. The site has been a reliable source of pro-Donald Trump material, a relationship that was made official when Breitbart chairman Stephen Bannon was appointed Trump’s campaign CEO in August. Bannon subsequently took a leave from his role at Breitbart.

But their willingness to work with a progressive activist perhaps goes to show how far they were willing to go to take down candidates, such as Rubio, whom they have described as being for “open borders" and "pro-amnesty.”

But Rubio was likely a common foe for both liberals and Breitbart. As hacked WikiLeaks emails from the Clinton campaign recently revealed, the Clinton campaign feared going up against Rubio in the general election.

Though Black is featured in the recent Project Veritas videos, none of the Breitbart write-ups on those videos — which were brought up in the last debate by Trump as evidence the DNC was coordinating disruptions at Republican campaign events — mention him by name.

Black has been interviewed by the site and has also been a guest on Breitbart’s radio programs.

In August, Yahoo News reported that Breitbart Washington editor Matthew Boyle had tried to get a progressive activist to send around a letter attacking a former Breitbart reporter — Michelle Fields — who quit the site after a confrontation with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Boyle was trying to rally progressives to protest her hiring by The Huffington Post. (The letter was never sent.)

"Aaron Black reached out to Breitbart and then we covered this and multiple other stories on our website and on our radio show on Sirius XM Patriot Channel 125," Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow told POLITICO in a statement. "Breitbart News Network is proud to work with sources from across the political spectrum to cover important and breaking news stories so that we may bring the most informative reporting to our readers. This type of reporting proves why Breitbart continues to have amazing growth with over 200 million monthly page views and 36 million monthly unique visitors. In addition, this month we launched an online store and radio show with Major League Superstar Curt Schilling.”

In a piece posted on Monday night, Breitbart denied that they coordinated with Black, saying that Black only told Breitbart News about planned events and that it was in fact a Jeb Bush staffer who tipped the site off about the Robot Rubio stunts.

"At no time did Breitbart News reporters or editors, including myself, tell or suggest to Black what to do—he was going to do what he was going to do—we just covered the news," Washington Editor Matthew Boyle wrote.

But emails obtained by POLITICO show that Breitbart reporters, including Boyle, worked with Black beyond tipping them off about his movements. At one point in the emails, Boyle makes suggestions for how Black could phrase his quotes about Rubio, and reminds him to film his next encounter.

In an email, Democracy Partners also denied that Black worked directly with the Breitbart team.

"Some Democracy Partners staff worked with groups that gave voice to the majority of Americans left out of the extreme conservative agenda of the Republican Party Presidential Primaries," the group said in a statement.

Black, Democracy Partners said, "disseminated information about the whereabouts of demonstrations and rapid response events to media outlets."

"The coalition demonstrated against all 17 of the Republican candidates," the statement continued. "We engaged the media from across the political spectrum. When we organized events aimed at a Trump opponent, Breitbart was more than happy to spread the word. When we organized events against Mr. Trump, Breitbart amplified the Trump Foundation-funded con artist James O’Keefe, who attacked our firm and coalition."

Rubio's office declined to comment.

This post has been updated to correct the characterization of Black's appearance in the Project Veritas video, to include Democracy Partners' statement and to include a link to Breitbart's story about its relationship to Black.

Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.