The intern did it!
Congressman Joe “Wasn’t Me” Garcia deleted on Saturday a tweet posted Friday that promoted the use of the Uber X car sharing service 
that county officials say is operating illegally in Miami-Dade.
At first, Ladra thought that maybe his account had been hacked by mastermind Republicans with a flair for the techie stuff. Then, it occurred to us that he had used the ride share service in another city and liked it. Ladra also wondered if he was doing a favor for Uber lobbyist, Brian May, a Democratic fundraiser who is business partners with Obama Florida girl Ashley Walker.
But, nooooo, it is apparently an unintentional oooops by a campaign lackey somewhere low on the totem pole.
Related story: Joe Garcia endorses illegal Uber ride share service
His new campaign manager, Juan Penalosa — who worked at IBM 18 months ago before joining Obama For America (more on that later) — said the tweet was the work of a well-intentioned intern who over-stepped boundaries and maybe got a little ambitious. He’s a hard working, young guy supposed to be tweeting photos of the Congressman who was showing a little initiative, Ladra was told.
Well, deja vu.
Wasn’t that the same lame excuse the Congressman used when Jeffrey “No Relation” Garcia, his former chief of staff and one time campaign consultant, was caught and later sentenced to 90 days for absentee ballot fraud in a scam where hundreds of AB requests were made online without the knowledge or permission of the voters? Jeff Garcia, too, was a well-intentioned staffer who was taking initiative, no?
Unlike Jeff Garcia, however, the intern who tweeted wrongly was not immediately fired. He got a stern talking to and a second chance.
Related story: 5 things to know about the Jeffrey Garcia AB fraud plea deal
Neither Rep. Garcia nor any of the interns apparently tweeting for him on his personal twitter account — and here we thought we were socially connecting directly with the Congressman! — mentioned the faux pas in a follow-up post. The tweet — in which Garcia, or rather his intern, gave 2,621 followers a promo number to use for a $10 discount — was simply removed.
There was no apology. No statement of clarification to say what happened and that, by the way, the Congressman does not truly advocate breaking the law.
“Last week, the campaign gave our digital intern access to Joe’s twitter account to post photos of volunteers at a grassroots event,” Panelosa told Ladra after she called to ask about the sudden disappearance of the post. “While we value the initiative and commitment of our volunteers, our intern posted a welcome to Uber tweet that reflected his opinion and not Joe’s opinion,” he added.
Well, it appears that Joe Garcia is never responsible for anything.
Absentee ballot fraud? “Wasn’t me. I had no clue as to what was going on.”
Ear wax? “I didn’t eat no stinkin’ ear wax,” Garcia sort of said after that C-SPAN gotcha moment in which he put his finger in his mouth after he took something out of his ear. He had a hangnail. Yeah, riiiiiight. I guess he was trying to fix it with his ear before he tried with his teeth.
Related story: New Joe Garcia ear wax footage: Great TV, bad PR
“Communism works?” The Congressman has said his statement — part of a pretty incomprehensible rant during a Google hangout on immigration — was taken out of context. He called the following Republican opportunistic outcry — America Rising even did another video on it to follow their ear wax ad — an “absurdity,” and was quoted as saying that “accusing the son of Cuban immigrants of believing in Communism is just ridiculous.” Even though lots of sons and daughters of Cuban immigrants do. But he never apologized. In fact, he said he would say it again. “I’ll keep repeating it,” he was quoted as saying.
Twitter post? “What twitter post?”
The intern did it!
Joe Garcia: ‘Wasn’t me.’ Intern posted for illegal car service added by Ladra on
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