The newly relaunched Congressional Integrity Project initiative, details of which were shared first with POLITICO, will include rapid response teams, investigative researchers, pollsters and eventually a paid media campaign to put congressional Republicans “squarely on the defense,” founder Kyle Herrig said in an interview.
The “multimillion dollar” effort is designed to create an effective counter-narrative that will be impossible for anyone to ignore (except, perhaps, Fox News).
It’s designed to serve as the party’s “leading war room” to push back on House Republican investigations, Herrig said in an interview. He added that the project 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.”
The project (which, according to POLITICO, has been cleared by Democratic House leadership) will “immediately” target the chairpersons and lead participants of these investigations. That laudable goal notwithstanding, there appears to be no reason for this project to limit itself to merely unmasking Republicans on the Oversight Committees alone. Hunter Biden, for example, is a private citizen whose name Republicans (like Gaetz, for example) have seen fit to drag through the mud at every turn.
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Likewise, Fauci holds no elected post in government. If Republicans intend to score their political points at the expense of intruding on these people’s privacy and personal lives—or cast unfounded aspersions on their alleged motivations—they would appear to have forfeited the right to protest any counter-investigations and publication of the foibles of their own colleagues and associates:
As the old saying goes, “What’s good for the goose …”
One of the leaders of the project, Democratic strategist Brad Woodhouse, emphasized to POLITICO that their group will employ “every tactic available” in order to ensure that we Americans, forced to witness these spectacles, will have a clear picture of these Republican interrogators and their motivations. The project will also employ the services of former Obama administration officials, as well as senior aides and advisers from President Joe Biden’s transition team and former Senate office.
As Przybyla and Carney explain:
The Congressional Integrity Project is also aiming to raise funds for a paid media campaign, including dedicated websites, digital ads, mobile billboards, newspaper ads and, occasionally, TV ad buys. Its public opinion research will be shared with like-minded organizations and congressional allies to contrast GOP investigations with issues the American public cares most about, project leaders said.
Their overall goal is to ensure that the Republicans’ planned inquisition prompts a voter backlash from Americans dismayed at these pointless, staged fiascos, and specifically seeks to ensure there is no repeat of Republicans’ colossally wasteful, two-year “Benghazi” debacle.
So, by all means, let the games begin. No doubt there are some families of Ohio State alumni, at least, who might express an interest.
