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Over the past year, House Republicans have been preparing for the barrage of investigations they plan to launch after taking over the lower chamber of Congress next year. They have put Biden administration officials on notice about what documents they demand and the people they want to question.
While House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is expected to become the next Speaker of the House, has been vocal in his declarations about what the GOP will do beginning next year, the White House’s response has flown largely under the radar. But Team Biden is also preparing their defenses against the Republicans’ efforts to investigate him.
NBC News reported:
Three new “war rooms” have sprung up in the past two weeks to combat the House Republicans’ investigations, each backed by multimillion-dollar dark money budgets and some of the best-known operatives in the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee and major outside groups are already retooling to shift from 2022 to 2024.
Eric Schultz told NBC that “[t]here are a lot of constraints on the administration when responding to oversight investigations – even ones that are completely bogus – but none of which apply to outside groups.”
The Biden administration appears poised to rely on several nonprofits to help them counteract the impact of the investigations from a political and public relations standpoint. These operatives will be on the front lines of the messaging battle.
Democratic strategists have relaunched the Congressional Integrity Project initiative to “focus on spurious investigations designed to hurt the Biden administration and Democrats and to usher Donald Trump back into power,” according to the group’s website.
The initiative “will include rapid response teams, investigative researchers, pollsters and eventually a paid media campaign” to put the GOP “squarely on the defense,” founder Kyle Herrig told Politico. He indicated that the group would “investigate the investigators, expose their political motivations and the monied special interests supporting their work, and hold them accountable for ignoring the urgent priorities of all Americans in order to smear Joe Biden and do the political bidding of Trump and MAGA Republicans.”
Facts First USA, another nonprofit working on behalf of the White House, signaled that it would also be working to mitigate the potential damage that will likely come from the investigations. “The White House cannot be the sole nucleus for publicly responding to the onslaught of congressional investigations,” according to a memo from the organization.
The group will form a “SWAT team to counter Republican congressional investigations,” and focus on more sensitive matters such as the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and his foreign business dealings. David Brock, the founder of the organization, told the New York Times that his team “intends to work with the White House where appropriate but will make our own judgments.”
McCarthy and his team better be ready to deal with the response coming from the left as they conduct their investigations. Democrats will bring every weapon they have against the Republicans participating in these probes. It won’t just be these nonprofits who will be working to shield Biden and his administration. The activist media will also play a critical role in this conflict. Members of the press will work around the clock to spin the damaging information that the investigations are likely to turn up.
This will not be an easy battle for House Republicans. Still, they do have an opportunity to show the nation how this administration is conducting itself, especially when it comes to the Justice Department and FBI. If the comments given to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) by whistleblowers are any indication, the political bias present in these agencies will be hard to counter. The same holds true for the Hunter Biden scandal and the botched military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It is also worth noting that one advantage conservatives will have is the fact that Twitter under Elon Musk will have a more level playing field. Conservative media and Republican politicians will not have to worry about having critical stories suppressed and accounts banned for going against the progressive narrative. If Republicans play their cards right, they might do enough damage to solidify further their chances of winning the White House and legislature in 2024.
