by Debra Heine
In the wake of the Republican midterm election trickle, a coalition of left-wing Democrats led by Media Matters founder David Brock is planning a multimillion-dollar counteroffensive against congressional Republicans.
With funding from some of the biggest donors in Democrat politics, Brock’s new nonprofit group, “Facts First USA,” plans undermine congressional Republicans as soon as they take control the House of Representatives.
The group intends to spend $5 million-a-year to push back against an expected onslaught of investigations into Joe Biden’s incompetent and corrupt administration, as well as his notoriously corrupt family’s foreign business dealings.
Brock has stepped away from his position as chairman of Media Matters and American Bridge, “to focus on Facts First USA, for which he will serve as president,” the New York Times reported on Thursday.
After the 2016 election, Brock, through his American Bridge PAC, began concocting a project to “hobble the Trump Administration with lawsuits, media criticism and new media competition.”
Now, his new group “Facts First USA” and the White House appear to be working together to hobble any investigation into the Biden regime’s rampant malfeasance. Together, they are reportedly assembling opposition research intended to cast Republicans conducting oversight as hypocrites, “pointing to those who defied subpoenas in the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.”
Brock put out a 15 page memo titled, “A SWAT Team to Counter Republican Congressional Investigations,” which has been “circulating among major Democratic donors, members of Congress, and others,” according to the Times.
“The White House cannot be the sole nucleus for publicly responding to the onslaught of congressional investigations,” the memo reads. Brock said his group “intends to work with the White House where appropriate but will make our own judgments.”
Brock listed the likely chairs of key House committees as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Judiciary; Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), Administration; James Comer, Oversight (R-Ky.); Michael Turner (R-Ohio), Intelligence; Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash.), Energy and Commerce Committee; and Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Foreign Affairs Committee, and complained that they will use “their new perches” to “engage in wide-ranging investigations that serve political ends.”
A top concern of the Democrat activist appears to be the possibility that Republicans will push impeachment articles against Joe Biden.
The memo cites Representative Bob Good, who stated recently, “President Biden should be impeached for intentionally opening our border and making Americans less safe. Congress has a duty to hold the President accountable for this and any other failures of his constitutional responsibilities, so a new Republican majority must be prepared to aggressively conduct oversight on day one.”
Other areas of concern include House investigations into Biden’s scandal-plagued son Hunter Biden, the regime’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal, its open border policies, its corrupt and tyrannical COVID policies, and its political weaponization of the Department if Justice.
Brock noted that the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee will target Hunter Biden over his consulting work for CEFC China Energy and other foreign business deals because they believe he is “a national security threat.” The Democrat activist complained bitterly that Hunter is the victim of an unfair “one-sided narrative,” and “the objective here is to suggest to the public that the Biden family is corrupt and compromised and cannot be trusted.” He recommended that Republicans “need to be ferociously countered – both with pointed responses anddirect attacks against the congressional inquisitors.”
In a news conference Thursday morning, Comer and Jordan of Ohio elaborated on the “investigative actions” they plan to take as leaders of the Oversight and Judiciary committees, respectively.
Comer made clear that his investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings is about Joe Biden, “and why he lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family’s international business schemes.
Comer vowed to pursue avenues “that have long been ignored.
NEW HOUSE OVERSIGHT CHAIR JAMES COMER: "I want to be clear. This is an investigation of Joe biden" pic.twitter.com/R0SUhQtxDk
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2022
The Democrat activist seemed indignant that anyone would object to the Biden Regime’s botched handling of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021.
“No president could have more successfully handled the international crisis of Russia invading Ukraine than did President Biden,” the memo states, before lavishing Biden with praise for his vast foreign policy prowess, and maligning Republicans as either “Putin hardliners or Putin apologists.”
“Republicans know that his foreign policy experience and strong leadership throughout the world paints a terrible contrast for them and their party’s odd internal split between Putin hardliners and Putin apologists,” he said.
Of course, not everyone is as impressed with Biden’s foreign policy decisions as Brock appears to be.
Robert Gates, the former defense secretary under President Obama, famously wrote in his memoir that Biden has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Brock also frets that the GOP will unfairly try to “score political points” by focusing on the Biden regime’s open border, and targeting his incompetent Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Republicans contend that Secretary Mayorkas is responsible for “the influx of fentanyl and illegal immigration” and that he has prevented more stringent border controls like constructing Trump’s border wall. In short, Republicans appear set to make border policy and Secretary Mayorkas a prime target in 2023. As Rep. Scalise recently said, Secretary Mayorkas “might have a reserved parking spot (at the Capitol) he’s gonna be up here so much.”
The memo goes on to advise that the GOP will investigate a variety of COVID- related topics, including NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, lockdowns, mask mandates, and COVID’s origins” in order to “appease their base.”
Brock described criticism of Fauci as “attacks” coming “directly from the far-right conspiracy theorists and evidence-deniers who now dominate the party,” such as presumably, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an eye surgeon, and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who holds Master of Science and electrical engineering degrees from MIT.
The memo says the GOP are trying to “discredit” Fauci by linking him “with unpopular mask mandates and school closures” and by disseminating a “narrative” that COVID-19 “was created in a Chinese lab in a conspiracy by Dr. Fauci.” As Brock is surely aware, the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which had been conducting risky gain-of-function research which was funded in part by NIAID.
Brock asserted that “Republicans want to make a boogeyman out of Dr. Fauci as a way to erode the public’s trust in government and administrative agencies more generally.”
Finally, the memo states that any Republican scrutiny of Justice Department malfeasance will be because “Trump loyalists” in the House are trying to discredit the FBI, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and (ultimately) jury ahead of the former president’s likely indictment and conviction for “serious crimes.”
“Trump committed serious crimes that may very well lead to his indictment and conviction. Republicans must discredit the FBI, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and (ultimately) jury that are responsible for his fate. Republican fealty to Trump is too strong for them to do anything but impeach Attorney General Garland,” Brock wrote.
According to the Times, another group, the Congressional Integrity Project, announced Wednesday that it also intended to launch a multimillion-dollar project to undermine investigations from the Republican-led House.
People involved in that initiative, which was first reported by Politico, have previously worked with Mr. Brock’s team and have close connections to the White House and the Democratic Party.
The political arm of the Center for American Progress, the influential progressive think tank, is planning to cast the Republican investigations as “politically motivated revenge politics,” according to its chief executive, Patrick Gaspard.
The rush by some of the left’s leading figures to mount responses underscores mounting concerns that Republicans could use their investigations to damage Mr. Biden and other Democrats headed into the 2024 presidential election. The scramble also highlights an old Washington dynamic: When there is divided government, lawmaking tends to grind to a halt and Congress is dominated by oversight fights.
The White House is reportedly “gearing up” for the oversight battles by adding lawyers and communications staff members, “while working with outside lawyers to prepare for an anticipated barrage of subpoenas, as well as possible efforts to impeach Mr. Biden.”
– – –
Debra Heine reports for American Greatness.
Photo “David Brock” by David Brock.
