Investigative Group

Bernie Sanders Pushed False Flag Conspiracy Theory About Domestic Bombings

REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Font Size:
  • Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed U.S. government agencies may have been behind a string of domestic bombings in 1976.
  • Sanders floated the conspiracy theory while launching his gubernatorial campaign that year.
  • Sanders “charged that government agencies like the CIA may in fact be responsible” for the bombings, a Vermont newspaper reported at the time.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders once floated a conspiracy theory about the U.S. government orchestrating domestic bombings for political purposes.

Sanders launched his 1976 campaign for Vermont governor by suggesting that government agencies were behind a string of attempted bombings across the country.

Sanders ran on the Liberty Union ticket — a Vermont political party he co-founded — alongside lieutenant governor candidate John Franco, who also lent credence to the conspiracy theory.

Sanders and Franco “coupled the announcement with a disavowal of terrorist bombings and a charge that many such incidents may be instigated by government agencies to undermine legitimate efforts to bring about change,” the Bennington Banner, a Vermont newspaper, reported at the time. 

Two days prior to Sanders’s announcement, eight letter bombs were sent to seven corporations and a business executive across four different cities. Authorities arrested two men, Leon Cordell Horton and Ardis Odell Reed, in 1981 for sending the bombs in what prosecutors said was an attempt to extort money from corporations. Both men were later found guilty.

The Banner’s story made clear the letter bombs and similar domestic attacks were the attacks to which Sanders and Franco reportedly referred as potentially orchestrated by the U.S. government. (Time Magazine noted in 2016 that “protest bombings in America were commonplace” during the 1970s.)

The Banner’s story stated both candidates denounced the “wave of letter bombings aimed at large corporations.”

“Both men said such terrorism is counterproductive to changing the ‘system,’ and charged that government agencies like the CIA may in fact be responsible,” read the Banner’s article, which The Daily Caller News Foundation reviewed in an online newspaper archive.

Anybody that thinks change is going to come because of bombings or terrorist activity is either extremely stupid, crazy or an agent of the U.S. government,” the paper quoted Sanders saying.

(Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images)

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders waves to the crowd at the She The People Presidential Forum at Texas Southern University on April 24, 2019 in Houston. (Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images)

“While [President] Donald Trump raves about a deep state coup and routinely invokes violence when discussing his political opponents, Senator Sanders is proud to have always supported peaceful political change,” a Sanders campaign spokeswoman told TheDCNF in an email.

A request for comment emailed to Franco received an automatic response saying he was out of office.

Attacking intelligence agencies has been a constant feature of Sanders’s political career.

At a 1974 Senate debate — two years prior to his promotion of the false flag conspiracy theory — Sanders said the CIA might be capable of overthrowing the U.S. government, the Banner reported in a contemporaneous article also reviewed by TheDCNF.

“Sanders called the CIA ‘a dangerous institution that has got to go,’ saying the CIA is ‘responsible to nobody except a handful of right-wing lunatics and the big multinational corporate interests,'” the paper reported.

“Sanders said that the CIA has overthrown many foreign governments unfriendly to the U.S. corporations and that they might even be able to overthrow the U.S. government if they chose to,” the Banner’s story added, noting that “Sanders was cheered at one point when he called for immediately disbanding of the CIA.”

(Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images)

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to a crowd at the She The People Presidential Forum at Texas Southern University on April 24, 2019 in Houston. (Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images)

When asked about his previous support for abolishing the CIA in 2016, Sanders said he no longer holds that position.

As recently as 2014, Sanders said that the intelligence agencies were “out of control.” (RELATED: 9 Radical Policies 2020 Democrats Are Putting On The Table)

“As you have heard from me, for years now, in my view the intelligence agencies in this country, the [National Security Agency], CIA, are out of control,” he said in an interview.

“We certainly need to know about the torture practiced under the Bush administration and the CIA has got to understand that they work for the American people and the U.S. Congress, they are not an independent entity that can do whatever they want to do,” the Vermont senator added.

Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel