The following testimony I received today from a MI Sanders volunteer supports my posts regarding the possible infiltration of Clinton moles in the Sanders campaign, including Ryan Hughes. The individual wishes to remain anonymous in light of the recent death of activist Shawn Lucas.

The volunteer's testimony follows with only minor edits to identify people referenced therein and to correct typos and a few spelling errors.

This is my testimony of the experience we had at our campaign office in Flint, MI

We formed a grassroots group to support Bernie Sanders for POTUS 2016 in Flint.
Mark [Craig] put up the money to secure the office and to have the electricity and internet installed.

We opened Feb. 4th 2016

Feb. 7th 2016 The official Bernie Campaign took over.

We were never formally introduced to Ryan Hughes [MI State Director Sanders Campaign] for and Allison? I had to ask who they were as they were barking out orders.

I, and others thought that they must know what to do since they were the official paid workers for the campaign.

The first sign of trouble is when Ryan Hughes, made Mark take his booth of Bernie tees, bumper stickers and pins down. Mark was livid, as he had put his tent up at the Farmers Market for months and the office has more than enough room to have it up inside. They eventually let him put it back in, but told him he couldn't bring any of his own products after the ones he had already made, had sold.

The first night we opened for phone banking we had 16 people, the next night it nearly doubled. We were so inspired by the community involvement.

Our location was downtown directly across from the bus station and the Farmers Market in the old Capitol Bldg. An ideal location!

The 3rd night I cam into the office and had been told by Allison that there wasn't much enthusiasm that night so I went in saying, “When I say Feel you say Bern” I did it 3 times to great response. Ryan told me to keep it down. *Enthusiasm was the fuel for the bern.

I had spent about $40 printing Memes to cover a wall about a bank. The next day they had taken down any anti Hillary memes saying they only wanted positive Bernie ones.
They also took down prints of US marching for Bernie in Flint????

When people began arriving for the 2nd Bernie March, we were told they could not gather inside but had to stay on the sidewalk??

They stopped all community outreach. We had cleaned up a park in Flint, and had plans to visit churches and set up tables at the Farmers Market.

The 2nd week they changed the phone banking program.

We were calling people who were telling us they had that number for 15 years and had not signed to be called.

We were sent to areas where house after house was condemned or apartment buildings that had one door that was locked for entry into the single apartments. This is Michigan after 17 inches of snow, when the sidewalks had not been shoveled. It was extremely hard to get to the houses. I canvased in 8 degrees and burnt my lungs and got very ill, was bed ridden for the next 2 weeks.

When I returned I sat at the welcoming desk instead of canvasing. We were told to have volunteers to sign in and out, to commit to canvasing or phone banking. We were told to have them sign in and out so they could get credit. One day I asked, “Credit for what, do we get a secret decoder ring or something?” I was told we would find out.

I was at the desk one day, when a young woman came in to get information about Bernie. Allison greeted her and ask her to sign the volunteer sign up sheet and commit to either phone banking or canvasing. The woman said she didn't want to commit and she was then told to write something in on the calendar, and that she cold call and cancel if she couldn't make it. The lady became livid and walked out. They did the same thing to my 86 year old mother in law that we brought in to see the office.

One thing of great concern was the lack of over sight of the donations and purchases from the store. The money was kept in a zipper pouch and any volunteer could take it and keep it in their possession. There were hundreds of dollars in it!! I bought a tee with my credit card information in March, it has never been charged to my account. My thought is that they took the cash and threw out the credit receipts? There was no accounting of the amount of money we started the day with and what was in it at the end of the day and to see if the purchases matched the sales???

My husband continued to canvas while I was ill, and also, after I returned to the office. We were there EVERY DAY!!!** We had also brought in 2 car loads of items to set us up in the beginning, tables and chairs and office supplies, Toiletries and Paper towels, rugs for the front doors. (winter can be very messy). Snacks and drinks and red white and blue decoration, and other items

Robb will tell you about how he asked for material to be printed out so that he could leave it on the doors he was canvasing and they told him they would but did not do so.

When Bernie came here to talk to us about the water crisis, we volunteered to help. It was extremely cold and a good amount of people in line. We were told to take the clip boards and get people's information??? They did the same thing to us when Bernie held a rally in Lansing
That day it was 27 degrees out. We were there to, again, take clip boards and get the 15,000 people in line to fill out their information! We were just a few days from our primary, so I wondered what the info would be used for, as it would be too late to import the data and be able to use it?

When a MSM crew came to talk about the water at the Farmers Market we were told to call people to see if they could get over there to hold Bernie signs as it was known that Hillary had supporters were already there. There were, I believe , 9 of us in the building at the time. One by one, we decided it would be best to just get over there ourselves, as we were just across the street!!! I called the first sheet of people and of course no one could get there, it was a work day or they were on the other side of town. I too ran over there with a Bernie Rally sign. I got there about 5 minutes before they ended the interview. It was ridiculous for us to try to call people when we were ONE minute way ourselves...

When it became time for the debate here we were extremely upset that only 2 of the founding members got tickets to it. The rest had gone to those that had the best CREDIT on the volunteer sheet, one from out of town Gloria Lopez, got a special one because she had picked up a VIP coming in for the rally in Lansing.(She said) and sat behind the mayor!

I was livid, I risked my life and health and had been campaigning for Bernie since July 2015.

When I was told to keep it down when I protested their decision, I told them Allison specially that I was aware that we had become a DATA MINING Office. And I was on to it.

I began taking down the wall of memes I had printed and hung, and the woman from Vermont? A paid worker. (sorry I can not remember her name, as we had zero interaction prior, although I had seen her in the office, asked if I could do so after hours. I told her I could continue to take them down or go across the street to the news station and talk to them. I wish I had done so, but at this point I was not aware of the other grass roots people were having their own experiences.

We were not allowed to take yard signs or rally signs to the debate venue!!!!!!!!!

My husband and Robb [another volunteer] quickly organized a protest march for outside of the venue. Within 2 days we had 200 joining us. Little did we know that several others groups had also planned protest and we all met at an intersection and marched together, probably 1,000. There were people there with large black and white photos of children poisoned by the Governor, there was a group from Detroit for $15 an hour and petitioners to get our governor recalled. It was amazing!!!

BTW, Ryan never interacted with any of us. He completely dissed Mark [Craig] by not reimbursing him for the electric and cable, and for the handy-capped ramp the fire Marshall said we had to have. He took everything he had out, and said he was through, with even Bernie. This man had a Large Bernie sign that he built onto a trailer and drove around town!! And we met in HIS home in the beginning.

Also. One of the MAJOR News Companies asked if they could set up in our office prior and during the debate and were told no. We had MORE than enough room for them to have done so and would have been a good thing to have inside your campaign office would it not?

Obviously, Mr. Hughes and the other paid staff may simply have been incompetent. Nonetheless, the incidents and counter-productive behavior by paid Sanders staff under Hughes described above is consistent with Hughes' activities as the State Director for the Sanders Campaign in Pennsylvania. It is also consistent with complaints by numerous grassroots volunteers in other states. Indeed, as I pointed out back in April, Sanders volunteers had good reason to suspect infiltration by Clinton operatives.

I understand that this comes to late to do any good with respect to Sanders nomination.

However I think we can use the testimony of volunteers, such as the person above, and the many negative and frustrating experiences that grassroots organizers faced this past election cycle as a cautionary tale going forward.

We all want to sustain the momentum of the "political revolution" that Bernie promoted, and which he claims his new organizations claim will continue. While I have great respect for Bernie, I think it behooves all of us to do our own independent investigation of the individuals working for his newly created organizations, Our Revolution and The Sanders Institute. I don't want my money going to groups that purport to be revolutionary, and then turns into just another Democratic party subsidiary, or mere liberal grifters such as Change.org.

Nor do I want to contribute to groups that become what Moveon.org is now, merely a conduit to take your money in exchange for generating ineffective online petitions. I want to know my money is being used for more than educational purposes, or just another failed attempt to change the Democratic Party from within. We need to insure that the individuals running these organizations are actively and effectively working to bring about the radical changes to our undemocratic, neoliberal, corporatist controlled political system that we so desperately need.