'We Merely Need to Dampen Turnout': Leaked Docs Show Top Trump Allies' 2016 Plan to Suppress Black Voters - 2020-10-28

'We Merely Need to Dampen Turnout': Leaked Docs Show Top Trump Allies' 2016 Plan to Suppress Black Voters October 28, 2020, Andy Kroll, Rolling Stone

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WASHINGTON — The disinformation operation was christened "Project Clintonson." It brought together two notorious figures in Republican political circles, Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Trump adviser Roger Stone. Their objective couldn't have been more explicit.

"We do not need to make major gains among African American voters," said a 13-page proposal for Project Clintonson that Prince sent to unnamed donors a week before Election Day 2016. "We merely need to dampen turn out [sic] and make it difficult for the Black Democratic elected officials in Hillary's pocket to turn out Black voters at Obama-like levels. A shift of a few points in the right places can swing this election."

The aim of Project Clintonson was to spotlight a young black man named Danney Williams, who claims that he is Bill Clinton's son, and to cast Hillary Clinton as the "villain of this drama." The pitch for Project Clintonson says that Williams was "definitively the abandoned son" of Bill Clinton and that "African American voters would be incensed to learn that it was Hillary who demanded that Bill abandon his only son."

Wikipedia cite:

{{cite news | first = Andy | last = Kroll | title = 'We Merely Need to Dampen Turnout': Leaked Docs Show Top Trump Allies' 2016 Plan to Suppress Black Voters | url = https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/roger-stone-erik-prince-black-voter-suppression-trump-1081281/ | work = Rolling Stone | date = October 28, 2020 | accessdate = October 30, 2020 }}