Republicans Reportedly Want To Weaponize Michael Flynn Case Against Joe Biden
Republicans have embarked on an effort to weaponize the Michael Flynn case against former Vice President Joe Biden, The Hill reported on Saturday.
Biden is now being investigated for his role in the Flynn case by two Senate committees, the Homeland Security panel and the Judiciary Committee, as the GOP probes his role in the “unmasking” of Flynn. According to the National Security Agency, 39 former Obama administration officials — including Biden — requested to know the identity of an American who held conversations with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s former Ambassador to the U.S.
Republicans reportedly believe the investigations will damage Biden and help President Donald Trump win the 2020 presidential election. The GOP-launched investigation of Hillary Clinton is thought to have harmed her chances of winning the election, and Republicans apparently want to repeat the same strategy in 2020.
“You’re starting to see a pattern that the Trump campaign would like to make, and that is Biden is a fraud and a hypocrite who is not up to the task of being president,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell explained.
Trump and his GOP allies have long claimed that former President Barack Obama and other Democrats were seeking to undermine his presidency even before he took office. Trump has repeatedly referred to the scandal as “Obamagate,” going as far as to urge South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham to call on Obama to testify before Congress.
Graham has said that he has no plans to summon the former president to testify, but some Republicans believe that the alleged scandal will pose an issue for Biden moving forward. Senate Republican Whip John Thune said that the Flynn case is “something that probably dogs Biden and his campaign for a while.”
“I think the optics of it are pretty bad for Biden and for the Obama administration,” he said.
According to The Hill, Republicans fear that they could lose the Senate majority as well, which seems as an additional reason for them to try and weaponize the Flynn case against the Democratic Party.
Democrats need only four seats to flip the Senate. According to reports, GOP insiders are alarmed about Sens. Susan Collins and Thom Tillis’ standing in their states.
In a statement, Biden spokesman Andrew Bates dismissed the investigations as an attempt to distract the public from Trump’s bungling of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Donald Trump’s attempt at dishonest media manipulation to distract from his response to the worst public health crisis in 100 years has backfired,” he said.
