Let’s take the low road: GOP should make 2024 a referendum on the Biden family
Elizabeth Stauffer
Video Embed
The rollout, if one can call President Joe Biden’s pathetic, anemic reelection announcement video a rollout, of Biden’s 2024 campaign showed he plans to campaign on abortion rights and the supposed extremism of MAGA Republicans. In his position, such a strategy makes sense. After all, these issues worked well for Democrats in 2022, and, given that his administration’s policies have run America into the ground, he can’t very well run on his record.
A negative campaign is hardly unprecedented. Just ask former President Barack Obama, who ditched his prior message of hope and change in 2012 to run a largely negative campaign against Mitt Romney. Via a blitz of brutal attack ads, his team managed to define Romney early on as a rich, out-of-touch elitist who did not care about ordinary people.
BIDEN’S COMPLETELY EXPECTED BORDER CRISIS
Unfortunately for Romney, secretly recorded comments he’d made at a private fundraiser in May 2012 surfaced online in September and appeared to confirm the Obama campaign’s smears. He told the group: “There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. … These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Of course, there was more to Romney’s loss than just the attack ads. Obama’s campaign had more money, a larger, more organized ground game, and technological superiority over the Romney team. But it was the negative campaign that inflicted lethal damage on Romney’s candidacy.
Republicans ought to keep this in mind as we enter into the 2024 season. Biden has abused his power repeatedly over the course of his long political career. And, now that Republicans control the House, his numerous transgressions are coming to light. Developments over the past two weeks alone have handed the GOP a vast amount of material with which to work.
On Wednesday, we learned that a whistleblower told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that the FBI possesses an unclassified document alleging a criminal bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden. This prompted House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) to issue a subpoena to FBI Director Christopher Wray, demanding Wray provide all FD-1023 forms “created or modified in June 2020, containing the term ‘Biden,’” by May 10.
The FD-1023, which is a summary of an interview with a confidential human source, appears to have gone the way of the FBI’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop. In other words, it’s been deliberately blackholed.
But that’s not all. Last week, former acting CIA Director Mike Morell told Congress that Secretary of State Antony Blinken, then a top adviser to the Biden campaign, allegedly served as the “impetus” behind an October 2020 letter signed by 51 prominent former intelligence community leaders ahead of the presidential election. The signers, you will recall, claimed that the New York Post’s devastating story about Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
This was no small thing. Their pivotal letter arguably saved Biden’s candidacy. The Biden campaign and the spies who signed the letter knew that the leftist media would pick up their narrative, and they were not disappointed. Politico immediately published the letter with the headline, “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former officials say.”
Just days after the letter was released, then-candidate Biden used it to shut down questions from then-President Donald Trump, who had raised the matter of the Biden family’s alleged overseas influence-peddling in a critical debate.
This was, in fact, the intelligence officials’ goal. On Thursday, Just the News’s John Solomon obtained a copy of an Oct. 19, 2020, email exchange between Morell and former CIA Director John Brennan. Morell explains he is “trying to give the [Biden] campaign, particularly during the debate on Thursday, a talking point to push back on Trump on this issue” and asks if he will sign the letter. Brennan replies, “Ok, Michael, add my name to the list. Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on.”
Both Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who also signed the letter, have been called to sit for transcribed interviews with the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on May 11 and 17, respectively.
The corruption surrounding Biden and his family runs deep, and the GOP would do well to exploit it. House investigators must continue their full-court press from now through Election Day 2024 to expose the Biden family’s malfeasance to the public.
Taking the high road has gotten Republicans nowhere. It’s time for the low road. Let’s make 2024 a referendum on Biden, his family’s alleged foreign influence-peddling scheme, and the corrupt administrative state that has protected him for so long.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner, Power Line, the Western Journal, and AFNN and a past contributor to RedState, Newsmax, and Bongino.com. Her articles have appeared on many sites, including RealClearPolitics, MSN, and the Federalist. Please follow Elizabeth on Twitter or LinkedIn.