With Republicans in Congress fixated on bloodying up the Biden administration with investigations and impeachment efforts, it’s perhaps fitting that the White House has commandeered a group of rooms in the Executive Office Building that was once reserved for the Secretary of War.
Anticipating a protracted battle with the GOP, the White House has made a number of key hires to help combat Republican efforts to go after key figures like Attorney General Merrick Garland, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, even President Joe Biden himself.
But it's not just the official White House that's providing cover for Biden and his Cabinet officials.
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Unlike with the Obama administration, which was constantly at war with House Republicans, Biden’s White House has outside allies, as Democratic groups have sprung up to protect Biden and make a mockery of GOP efforts to sink his administration. And as Republicans finally make good on their promises to force impeachment votes on these White House officials, Democrats think they’re ready for the fight.
Lefty groups like the Congressional Integrity Project and Facts First USA were first formed in 2020 and are doing much of the heavy lifting for the White House, as Biden and his staff attempt to stay out of the political fray—at least publicly.
“The impeachment efforts are not legitimate,” said David Brock, a longtime Democratic operative who launched Facts First USA. “They’re basically 100 percent driven by the idea that the Republicans believe that the impeachment of Trump hurt him politically. So the fact that they have the power to do it, they’re gonna do it, whether they have the facts on their side or not.”
Brock, who was famously a right-wing reporter in the 1990s before converting to the Democratic side, said he’d seen this as a long time coming—a sort of slow onramp of Republican ire against the Biden administration that he only expects to grow ahead of next year’s elections.
House Democrats have been sharpening their knives as well, dissecting GOP arguments on immigration and the investigation into Hunter Biden.
Garland will also testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee in September, while Mayorkas will testify before the committee in July, after going before the panel multiple times this year.
Garland took a shot at the GOP efforts to impeach him at a press conference last week, saying, “I certainly understand that some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department, and its components, and its employees, by claiming that we do not treat like cases alike.”
“This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy and essential to the safety of the American people. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he added.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security also told The Daily Beast that, “instead of pointing fingers and pursuing a baseless impeachment” against Mayorkas, “Congress should work with the Department and pass comprehensive legislation to fix our broken immigration system, which has not been updated in decades.”
It’s not the first time in history GOP members of the House have pushed for an impeachment spree. During Barack Obama’s presidency, House Republicans targeted a number of officials: Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, IRS official Lois Lerner, and, of course, Obama himself.
But what’s different now is that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) appears much more amenable to the far-right efforts to pursue these impeachment efforts—and force the GOP conference to actually vote on impeaching these officials. Conservatives have recently proved they’re willing to hold the House floor hostage if they don’t get their way. And conservatives have shown deep interest in going after the Biden administration.
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) have competing impeachment articles against Biden. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has introduced impeachment articles against Mayorkas. And McCarthy himself is floating impeachment against Garland over IRS whistleblower claims.
But again, Democrats don’t appear all that worried. Their new firepower—both inside and outside the White House—has given them tools to push back against GOP messaging. And Democratic operatives say the impeachment efforts are just setting up an advantageous split-screen between House Republicans and House Democrats ahead of 2024, when Biden will be running for re-election.
Democratic strategist Eric Schultz, the former deputy White House press secretary who was largely in charge of fighting GOP messaging in Congress during the Obama administration, told The Daily Beast he sees the White House “putting points” on the board while “House Republicans look like they’re in a playpen.”
He compared it to the situation of the Obama years.
“The contrast with Democrats could not be more clear and the same Republican buffoonery upon taking control of the House in 2011, was a key factor in President Obama’s resounding re-election,” Schultz said. “Republicans don’t appear to have learned any lessons.”
The outside groups say they're constantly looking for opportunities to message on the impeachment efforts. Brock said he expects his group to conduct research on the impeachment pushes in an effort to rebuke their merits to voters. The Congressional Integrity Project has been regularly compiling and publicizing roundups of what they call “political stunts” from House Republicans “in a desperate attempt to overshadow Biden’s record.”
Kyle Herrig, the Congressional Integrity Project’s executive director, told The Daily Beast that “McCarthy’s charade of attempting to impeach every cabinet member in the Biden administration proves his only agenda is to detract from Trump and his alleged crimes.”
While these groups grandstand on the impeachment pushes, the targets’ respective agencies have remained careful to not say too much. The White House declined comment for this story, and officials generally resisted the opportunity to discuss Biden administration efforts to combat Republicans even when they were given the opportunity to talk anonymously.
Brock suggested that’s probably the right route for the executive branch to take, arguing that, for the White House, it’d be “a waste of time to get into the mud.”
Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, did tell The Daily Beast that, “Speaker McCarthy and the extreme House Republicans are proving they have no positive agenda to actually help the American people on the issues most important to them and their families.”
Sams was one of the hires brought on during the sweep last year intended to beef up pushback efforts from the White House. Anita Dunn, a veteran Biden aide, also returned to the White House in May to help tackle the White House’s response efforts to the GOP-controlled House, along with Richard Sauber, a longtime attorney with experience in white-collar crime.
As time goes on, and momentum for the pushes grows, the White House might very need those bona fides. But still, many Democrats are scoffing at the efforts as child’s play.
Schultz, alluding to a quote from the television show Succession, told The Daily Beast, “To borrow a phrase, these are not serious people.”
