Patricia Doxsey is reporting for the Daily Freeman Republican congressional candidate Colin Schmitt on October 21, shared a dishonestly edited social media post excerpted from a Freeman video interview to suggest that U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan, his Democratic opponent, responded to a Freeman question in a way he did not. The post appeared on Schmitt’s Twitter account along with a comment stating, “honesty is the best policy.” Ryan’s actual answer from the interview was cut from the video. Ryan is running for the 18th congressional district seat and spoke with the Freeman on October 21, in a one-hour video interview. Schmitt declined repeatedly to participate in both a debate hosted by the Freeman and in a video interview with the paper, the only invited candidate to do so. He participated in a one-hour “meet the candidates” forum hosted by the Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce on September. 27, his only appearance with Ryan in Ulster County. Schmitt, a state assemblymember from New Windsor, backed out of a debate with Ryan at Bard College but had one debate with Ryan at Marist College hosted by Spectrum News and a candidate forum by the Dutchess Chamber of Commerce last week. During his interview with the Freeman, Ryan was asked about his past employment with Dataminr, which gathers public information from social media and sells it to a variety of companies across the world. In that interview, Ryan answers: “Sure, this is another area where there’s a lot of b.s. information out there where it’s totally misleading.” But in the campaign clip, the video was cut after Ryan said the word “sure” making it sound as if Ryan admitted that the content gathered was sold to Russia. Schmitt and National Republican Congressional Committee Regional Press Secretary Samantha Bullock each shared that misleading clip, along with comments that also intentionally mischaracterized what Ryan said. Despite being told the clip was dishonestly edited and that Ryan had not said what the two were claiming, neither Schmitt nor Bullock would remove the post from their Twitter accounts. Bullock did not respond to an email seeking comment. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.