Colorado Dem Manny Rutinel Claimed To Be a 'First Responder' After Hurricane Maria. He Worked on Spreadsheets.

The Democratic nominee in Colorado's competitive Eighth Congressional District, Manny Rutinel, routinely boasts that he was a "first responder" in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. But he wasn't treating critical wounds or rushing people to the hospital—he was sitting at a desk and working on spreadsheets.

Rutinel's campaign website says he "served as an economist for the US Army Corps of Engineers"—a job he took in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area shortly after graduating from the University of Florida—"and became a first responder after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico." It includes a photo of him wearing a hard hat and an orange safety vest. In other instances, such as in a July 14 fundraising email, Rutinel drops the "economist" title and only mentions his post-storm work.

While the Army Corps of Engineers has called him a "first responder," the title gives the impression that Rutinel was engaged in dangerous rescue efforts normally associated with law enforcement, paramedics, and firefighters. But government materials—and his own contemporaneous description—show Rutinel's responsibilities were nothing of the sort.

Rutinel worked at Pier 14 in San Juan, which was used to stage and repair generators as part of the Army Corps of Engineers's mission to provide temporary power to Puerto Rico until the island's grid was restored, according to a YouTube video posted by the agency, which dubbed Rutinel a "Logistics Specialist."

"What I do here as a logistics specialist at Pier 14 is I make sure that there's an appropriate inventory of large and small generators to be deployed out into the field," Rutinel said in the February 2018 video. "But what we're also trying to do in this winding-down process as commercial power comes on board in Puerto Rico is we're trying to track which generators to send back to the United States."

The video shows Rutinel sitting at a desk in front of a laptop working on a spreadsheet. A cruise ship is docked behind him as he speaks straight to the camera in another shot.

An article the Army published a month earlier, which features a photo of Rutinel, notes that the generators "help power lifesaving facilities" but doesn't use the term "first responder" or suggest that Pier 14 personnel were involved in traditional emergency responses.

Captions on the only three photos the Army Corps of Engineers published of Rutinel include similar descriptions. In fact, the picture on his campaign website apparently shows him briefing reporters on Pier 14's mission.

Rutinel's ambiguous use of the "first responder" title is a reflection of the Democrat's attempts to portray himself in a moderate light as he runs for a swing seat that could determine which party controls the House.

Rutinel, whose father is part of a socialist political dynasty in the Dominican Republic, wrote blog posts advocating for socialism and veganism, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Headlines included "What Would Jesus Do? Socialism" and "The 5 Stages of Becoming a Vegan." Rutinel was a vegan for roughly two decades and spent years calling to eliminate animal agriculture in policy papers, testimony, and lectures. He was also a prolific climate protester, having been arrested during halftime at a Yale-Harvard football game in November 2019 to demand the schools divest from oil and gas.

Colorado's eighth district, however, relies heavily on the ranching and oil and gas industries, and Rutinel has changed his tune as he runs to represent it, campaigning as a "friend" of meat producers and an advocate for "an all-of-the-above energy solution that keeps costs for families low and protects good-paying jobs in our communities." His campaign denies that he is a socialist and says he hasn't been a vegan for several years.

As a state legislator, Rutinel backed a slew of left-wing causes. He sponsored legislation requiring health insurers to cover "gender-affirming health care," including sex changes with no age restrictions, and backed a bill that ordered courts to consider whether parents use their child's preferred pronouns when ruling on custody battles. Rutinel also supported a program providing taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrant "pregnant persons" and children, which cost seven times more than expected.

Rutinel's pivot to the center has at times complicated his campaign events. In early September, Rutinel was slated to join an event hosted by a network of left-wing groups that have called to "close immigration detention centers," "prohibit police and ICE from working together," and "shrink the size, scope, and footprint of policing." The event was abruptly canceled after the Free Beacon submitted a request for comment.

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