Deerfield, IL — Donald Trump’s new Deputy Campaign Manager David Bossie has spent decades attacking the Clintons. Before leading the right-wing group Citizens United, Bossie made waves with the infamous House Government Reform & Oversight Committee in the 1990s, where now-Republican Rep. Bob Dold was also a partisan Clinton “investigator.”
Facing tough poll numbers in his re-election bid and Trump’s unpopularity in the 10th District, Bob Dold has said he won’t support Trump—but he’s also not supporting Clinton either. Bob Dold’s refusal to support Trump’s challenger Hillary Clinton isn’t the only reason he would be welcome at Trump Tower:
- Fresh out of law school, Dold “cut his teeth” as a partisan “Clinton investigator” for Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN). The committee Dold worked for was so extreme, House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it a “circus” and told Burton, “I’m embarrassed for you” (Washington Post, 1/31/2012).
- As a Republican political operative in 1992 and 1996, Dold fought to keep the Clintons out of the White House.
- This weekend Dold headlines a partisan “Beat Hillary” fundraiser for a pro-Trump group in Lake County.
Bossie and Dold’s investigation was, at best, wasteful and partisan. In a desperate attempt to tarnish the Clintons, subpoenas were given to the wrong people, witnesses were startled by overzealous investigators, and procedural norms were ignored. It was described as “a case study in how not to do a Congressional investigation and a prime example of investigation as farce” (Los Angeles Times, 5/2/98).
David Bossie has been called a “dogged anti-Clinton sleuth” (Eric Schmitt, New York Times) for his work that “helped craft the anti-Clinton playbook in the ’90s, digging up dirt as early as 1992 on the family, and played an instrumental role in turning the Whitewater scandal into the sacred right-wing text it is today” (Alex Shephard, New Republic).
“It’s obvious that Republicans from Donald Trump to Bob Dold, from David Bossie to the Lake County Republicans, are gearing up to try to defeat Hillary Clinton,” said Tenth Dems Managing Vice-Chair Barbara Altman. “Voters aren’t fooled—when Bob Dold and his fellow Republicans hurt Hillary Clinton, they help Donald Trump. That’s just not the side 10th District voters want to be on.”