Nearly 100 staff of Republican opposition research group America Rising are digging up dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The group has 20 full-time and more than 50 part-time trackers across the country, mostly in early primary states and big money hubs such as Boston, New York and San Francisco, to document Clinton’s every move.
At the Arlington, Va., headquarters, more than 20 researchers are mining the paper trail she has left behind her during decades in public life, trying to find facts and factoids which can be turned into deadly ammo against the Democratic frontrunner. A dedicated war room synthesizes all of the dirt and directs the attacks.
America Rising is a limited liability corporation with an tethered super PAC that can raise unlimited contributions. The group expects to spend some $15 million on these and other stratagems against Clinton, her party’s presumptive presidential nominee. The idea is to help win the White House for whichever Republican leads the GOP ticket in 2016.
America Rising president Joe Pounder says he will be relentless in targeting Clinton. “America Rising was focused on researching Hillary Clinton since the day we started in April of 2013,” he told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “We’re looking for constant opportunities, on a day-to-day basis, to exploit that research.”
The 2016 presidential candidate, wife of President Bill Clinton, began her professional career as an attorney and rose to prominence as her husband’s career progressed. Bill was elected Arkansas attorney general in 1976; governor in 1978, and governor again in 1982 after being ousted by a Republican in 1980. He was elected president in 1992 and was re-elected in 1996.
As first lady, in 2000, Hillary won an open Senate seat in New York. She was re-elected in 2006. She lost her first bid for the Democratic presidential nomination two years later, but President Obama appointed her secretary of state. She ran the State Department throughout Obama’s first term.
All the way along that political track Clinton left a trail of decisions that can be exploited by friend and foe.
America Rising is one of many political groups and super PACs aiming to help Republicans and destroy Clinton. But it’s the only one devoted to opposition research. Investigating politicians’ backgrounds is intricate, painstaking work that relies not on tips or inside information but on public records and government information available only through public records requests.
On Wednesday, America Rising released video of Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta and Democratic operative David Brock, a Clinton supporter, soliciting campaign funds from donors in San Francisco. The footage was captured by an America Rising tracker on Tuesday, the same day Clinton said at a campaign stop in Iowa that one of her goals as president would be to get big money out of politics.
On Tuesday, America Rising advertised against Clinton for the first time this election cycle, with online ads targeted directly at residents of Norwalk, Iowa, where the candidate campaigned on Wednesday. The ads were placed in Facebook feeds or paired with Google and YouTube searches. The Des Moines Register first reported the news of the advertising.
Democratic insiders with experience in the opposition research field say America Rising’s tactics are proving effective. The group combines two affiliates, one a limited liability corporation that produces information, and the other a super PAC that buys it from them and disseminates it as it sees fit. That allows the corporation to sell its opposition research to other entities, which could help Republican groups coordinate their anti-Clinton activities.
One Democratic consultant called this approach “interesting” and a potential strategic asset for Republicans in 2016.
America Rising’s Democratic rival, American Bridge, offered grudging recognition of the GOP group’s impact. The Democratic opposition research super PAC started in 2011. It was so effective at using research and trackers to attack GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 that there was huge demand among Republicans for their own opposition research super PAC by the time America Rising launched in 2013.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so we take America Rising’s existence as a compliment to the work we’ve done,” American Bridge spokesman Ben Ray said. “But in the words of Marvin Gaye, ‘ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby’ and anybody that’s seen our tracking and research teams in action knows it.”
America Rising began two years ago with a budget of about $8 million for the 2014 cycle.
It also researches and attacks Democratic House and Senate candidates. But from the start, it has trained its sights on Clinton. With about 10 researchers, it spent 2013 and 2014 digging into Clinton’s past, and cataloging video and audio of everything she said, preparing to use it at a moment’s notice once the race got underway.
America Rising believes it has only scratched the surface of what it can probably learn and exploit from Clinton’s tenure at the State Department.
Meanwhile, America Rising trackers have been in place in key early primary states, such as New Hampshire, since the last election cycle. Many operatives were kept on the payroll after the midterm elections to be ready for Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
America Rising had two trackers following Clinton in Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday. Back at headquarters just outside of Washington, key operatives for the group include Pounder, who is president of the limited liability company, Colin Reed, executive director of the super PAC, communications director Jeff Bechtel, Alex Angel, head of the presidential research team, and Francis Brennan, who leads the war room.
“We’re going to be very aggressive,” Pounder said.
