About that Piotrowski tweet that Labrador read during last night’s debate…

During last night’s 1 ^st District congressional debate, GOP Rep. Raul Labrador went after his Democratic challenger, James Piotrowski, saying, “He’s not a moderate,” and reading a tweet that Piotrowski sent from his personal Twitter account in February of this year. The tweet: “@BernieSanders this tweet cost you the vote of this lifelong progressive, labor activist and socialist. This was beneath you.” The tweet was posted at 7 p.m. on Feb. 3, 2016. It’s since been deleted.

That was the same day that Sanders sent a tweet sharply critical of rival Hillary Clinton, including an image of a long list of complaints about Clinton’s record opening with, “Pleads guilty to being moderate and center. Has a Wall Street-funded SuperPAC. Promoted fracking. Opposes Medicare-for-all and says a single-payer system will never ever happen.”

Last night, after the debate, the Idaho Republican Party tweeted a screenshot of the Piotrowski tweet, adding this comment: “We’ll just leave this here. So much for ‘moderate’ or ‘reasonable’ @IdahoDems.”

The account, @therealjamespio, is one that was opened in 2009, and has few followers. Among them, though, is Piotrowski’s wife Sandy and others in Idaho. In the profile for the account, it says only, “Noone’s ever had to ask which side I am on.” As of last night, Twitter showed that 117 tweets had been sent from the account; this morning, it’s down to just one and all tweets have now been protected from public view.

Campaign spokesman Derek Farr said this morning, “Yes, it was his account. Yes, it was his tweet.” Piotrowski is with a client this morning, Farr said, but will be talking with Eye on Boise later this morning to answer questions about it.