The DNC Goes Fishing

Jul 02, 2023

Afew weeks ago, Politico’s Florida Playbook ran a story revealing what“hundreds of people, groups, and journalists” in the state were asking for: “texts, emails, calendars, letters, andreceipts” to or from Florida’s governor, presidential candidate RonDeSantis.

InPolitico’s telling, many of the requesters were affiliated with the DemocraticParty, making demands under the state’s open-records lawto get “damning material against political enemies.” And, in DeSantis’ case, Florida’s publicrecords certainly marked the best starting point to look for muck. The list that Politico received of requesterstargeting DeSantis in his home state was 222 pages long.

“Unsurprisingly,mostly Democratic-aligned groups asked for dirt on DeSantis and his innercircle,” Politico wrote. “Oddly, no onetied to Trump – or other 2024 candidates – asked for such records, though it’spossible that GOP campaigns used an untraceable proxy to avoid angering afuture Republican president.”

Whydidn’t the Trump campaign file such requests? Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, bluntly told Politico: “We have information that no oppositionresearcher can ever find.”

Opposition research – “oppo” in the vernacular of politicians – is a basic building block in every political campaign. Oppo is the ammunition behind every negative campaign ad; every gut punch in a debate. The higher the stakes, the deeper the research. And many more players are in the opposition-research game now, following the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

TheCourt’s 5-to-4 decision in Citizens United opened the door to unlimitedelection spending by so-called independent political action committees, akaSuperPACs. Super PACs spend big onnegative ads, and oppo is their ammo. Accordingto OpenSecrets.org, which tracks theflow of money in politics, spending in the 2020presidential and congressional races totaled $14.4 billion, more thandouble the total cost of the record-breaking 2016 presidential election cycle. That huge influx of money led to morenegative campaign advertisements across all media, which in turn juiced theneed for more opposition research. (Fulldisclosure: I am a longtime board memberof OpenSecrets).

Notsurprisingly, those conducting opposition research turn early and often to the Freedomof Information Act. So we decided to diginto PoliScio Analytics’ competitive-intelligencedatabase FOIAengine, which tracksFOIA requests in as close to real-time as their availability allows, to seewhat the players are up to.

Withso many candidates vying for the Republican nomination, the Republican NationalCommittee is staying on the sidelines, leaving opposition research to theaffiliated PACs and super PACs of the various candidates. Next week, we’ll take a closer look at someof the thousands of FOIA requests from Republican proxies acting on behalf of,or in synch with, the Republican candidates.

Withthe Democrats, it’s the GOP story in reverse. The Democrats know who their probable standard bearers will be. But, with more than a dozendeclared Republican candidates and an even greater number of undeclared longshots, Democratic oppo researchers must throw a dragnet, systematicallyspreading an array of FOIA requests across a broad swath of agencies anddepartments.

PresidentBiden’s main super PAC, FutureForward, which spentmore than $130 million in 2020, doesn’t show up as a requester in FOIAengineat all. Instead, the Democratic NationalCommittee appears to be taking the oppo-research lead. According to FOIAengine, theDNC has filed more than 300 recent FOIA requests with federal agencies, coveringthe wide range of candidates who could end up as the eventual presidential orvice presidential nominee on the Republican presidential ticket.

FOIA requests to the federalgovernment can be an important early warning of bad publicity, litigation tocome, or uncertainties that must be hedged or gamed out. In this case, the DNC’s FOIA requests appearto reflect a calculus that even if the race for the top of the ticket issettled early, the vice-presidential spot will end up being a wild card. Hence, the DNC must place a lot of early betson the table.

Over the past year or so, theDemocrats’ have filed extensive FOIA requests with various federal agenciesseeking detailed information on at least 19 present or former Republicanofficeholders. The list includes somewho have stated flatly that they’re not running for president, but who could endup as a running mate. There are some darkhorses: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), MikePompeo, Ben Carson, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) are among the DNC’stargets. And a few surprises: Rep. EliseStefanik (R-N.Y.)and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) areon the DNC’s list; VivekRamaswamyisn’t – yet.

Following are highlights from theDNC’s opposition-research FOIA requests thus far:

To see all the DNC opposition-research requests, log in or sign up to become a FOIAengine beta user.

Next: Thousands ofopposition-research requests from Republican-affiliated PACs.

John A. Jenkins, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington journalist andpublisher whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ,and elsewhere. He is a four-timerecipient of the American Bar Association’s Gavel Award Certificate of Meritfor his legal reporting and analysis. His most recent book is The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist. Jenkins founded Law Street Media in 2013. Prior to that, he wasPresident of CQ Press, the textbook and reference publishing enterprise ofCongressional Quarterly. FOIAengineis a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a new venture specializing in U.S. political andgovernmental research, co-founded by Jenkins and Washington lawyer RandyMiller. Learn more about FOIAenginehere. To review FOIA requestsmentioned in this article, subscribe to FOIAengine.

Write to John A. Jenkins at [email protected].