A super PAC affiliated with Steve Bannon has launched an ad campaign to discredit the Robert Mueller investigation and get multiple members of his team fired, Think Progress reported on Thursday.
The publication reported that the ad from the Great America Alliance features Tomi Lahren, is running in local cable markets, and is similar to an ad the group ran this past summer.
From Think Progress:
“Who does Mueller select to help lead the ‘independent’ investigation?” Lahren asks. “Four top lawyers, all major donors to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic national party… Only in Washington could a rigged game like this be called ‘independent.’”
The new ad ends with a phone number viewers can call to “demand” Mueller fire the “Clinton four.” A recorded message says, “Thank you for calling to demand Mueller fire the Clinton four” and asks the caller to listen to an important message from Lahren.
“We must and will show support for President Trump,” Lahren says in the recording. “We cannot win this fight without support from patriot supporters like you… Can we count on you to support President Trump’s presidency?”
When Think Progress continued to follow the automated call’s prompts to donate, they ended up speaking with a staffer named Nancy who said the group was also calling for Mueller to be fired.
The Great America Alliance, whose donors remain private following the Anthony Kennedy decision in Citizens United to allow unlimited anonymous campaign contributions, describes itself as an offshoot of the Great America PAC. On its web site, the Alliance describes that Super PAC as “the largest and most effective pro-Trump Super PAC, raising and deploying $30 million in support of the president’s candidacy.”
The Alliance is co-chaired by Eric Beach. Lahren joined the group as an advisor in May and has been featured in multiple ads.
Here’s the anti-Mueller ad that the group ran in June, two weeks after a top presidential ally floated the idea of firing Mueller right after Trump told reporters he would gladly speak to Mueller and was “100 percent” willing to testify under oath.
The latest attacks echo recent talking points that Republican members of the House judiciary committee used to smear Mueller and his team during a hearing on Wednesday. It also echoes some of Lahren’s political commentary for Fox News’ web site. “The Russia probe was literally sewer rats from the start,” she said in one of these commentaries, recently posted on the Great America Alliance and Great America PAC Facebook pages. “Some of these Mueller team rats now hell-bent on destroying President Trump are the same ones who helped get Hillary Clinton off the hook.”
Robert Mueller was appointed by Trump’s own Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to serve as special counsel to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and any Americans who may have participated in it. Mueller was previously appointed by the last Republican president, George W. Bush, to be head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. He also won the Purple Heart and Bronze Star while serving as a captain during the Vietnam War. Trump received five deferments during that war, including one medical deferment for a diagnosis of bone spurs in his foot.
The Great America PAC describes itself as having “ties” with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. “Bannon’s political adviser at the White House, Andy Surabian, recently joined Great America Alliance—affiliated with the PAC—as a senior adviser, deepening the links between Bannon and the organization,” the group has reported.
CNN previously reported that the Great America Alliance had planned to spend at least $150,000 in ads attacking Doug Jones and supporting alleged child molester Roy More in the final two weeks of the Alabama special election for the U.S. Senate. Jones, the Democrat, won that seat on Tuesday.
