Liberal groups cry foul over Trump’s trip
Watching the TV ads attacking Democrat Conor Lamb, you’d think the special-election candidate in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District was joined at the hip with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. But it’s his rival, Republican state Rep. Rick Saccone, who appears most publicly with his party’s leaders.
And some upstart liberal groups are trying to raise a fuss about it.
This week, the Democratic friendly American Democracy Legal Fund asked the Government Accounting Office to review whether President Donald Trump’s visit Jan. 18 to a North Fayette equipment shop amounted to a campaign stop on the taxpayers’ account.
“President Trump has continuously billed trips across the country as ‘official business’ — foisting the costs of … campaigning on behalf of candidates like Mr. Saccone onto American taxpayers,” an ADLF letter asserts. “We believe it is of the utmost importance for this
issue to be investigated.”
Mr. Trump said little about Mr. Saccone during the visit. Prior to his speech, the president answered a reporter’s query about the candidate by saying, “We’re going to fill up a stadium and … do something really special for Rick.” During the speech, he did little more than note Mr. Saccone’s presence, along with that of other Republicans.
And the day of his visit, his administration said, in response to questions about Mr. Saccone, “While the president has made clear his support for Republican candidates … the purpose of today’s visit is to promote the president’s successful-agenda.”
But hours before arriving, Mr. Trump tweeted that he would “be going to Pennsylvania today in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE.”
“Trump tweeted that he was going to PA to help Saccone — which is about as blatant an admission as you can get that an official event was being done for political purposes,” said ADLF spokesman Brad Woodhouse.
“There are a number of areas in which [Mr. Trump] is pushing the envelope,” said Lawrence Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center. Tweeting is one of them.
“It sounds like at the event itself, he only made a passing reference [to Mr. Saccone],” he said. “But by tweeting about it, he creates a framework where it seems campaign-related.”
Controversy over such issues is not new. In 2012, the Republican National Committee complained that thenPresident Barack Obama, who was in the midst of his re-election bid, was holding nominally official events at Democratic bastions such as college campuses.
A 2012 report on presidential travel by congressional staffers noted that since the Ronald Reagan administration, the White House has handled the mixing of political and official business by calculating the portion of a trip that is campaign-related and billing either a political party or campaign committee for that portion.
Still, the report conceded, “Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether a trip, or part of a trip, should be characterized as official or unofficial. … [P]art of the official duties of the President and Vice President involve their efforts to present, explain, and secure public support for their policies” — and building such support is inherently political.
Mr. Lamb and Mr. Saccone will square off March 13 in a special election to replace Republican Tim Murphy, who resigned the U.S. House seat last fall.
Republican national groups — whose nearly $5 million in ad spending is more than 15 times what Democratic advertisers have spent backing Mr. Lamb so far — have sought to link Mr. Lamb to Ms. Pelosi. Mr. Lamb has said he would favor new party leaders, but the ads use his last name and animated sheep to suggest he would flock to Ms. Pelosi’s banner.
And Mr. Trump isn’t the only elected official whose support for Mr. Saccone has drawn fire. U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, also drew criticism for remarks he made at a rally Friday in Bethel Park attended by Vice President Mike Pence.
Mr. Kelly stressed “the importance of having Rick Saccone in Washington, the importance of having a real veteran in Washington, the importance of having a real American in Washington.”
That angered New Politics, a left-leaning political group that backs veteran candidates and saw the “real veteran” reference as a shot at Mr. Lamb, who previously served in the Marine Corps. (Mr. Saccone served in the Air Force.)
The group called it “unacceptable for any elected official to dishonor the nature of a veteran’s service, let alone someone like Mike Kelly who’s never worn the uniform.”
In a statement, Mr. Kelly’s office said his speech “was focused exclusively on praising Rep. Saccone and had nothing to do with Mr. Lamb at all.” It called New Politics’ criticism “desperate, ridiculous and offensive.”
Such criticisms seem likely to draw less attention than the ads targeting Mr. Lamb. The latest spot? An ad aired by the National Republican Campaign Committee suggested that Mr. Lamb’s criticisms of Mr. Trump’s tax cut “sound just like” those of Ms. Pelosi.