As he prepares a potential new presidential campaign, Donald Trump seeks to recruit an agent who was behind a group that questioned the Vietnam War record of 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry, the Washington Post. reported.
The agent who ran Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Chris LaCivita, worked for a aligned with trump political action committee during the 2020 elections and now leads another. He is also a consultant to Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin senator who supports Trump and is fighting for re-election.
The Post cited four anonymous sources. He also reported LaCivita’s response: “Thanks for the opportunity, but I don’t comment on rumours!!”
Despite deepening legal risk on numerous fronts, Trump dominates polls of potential Republican candidates in 2024 and continues to tease a third White House bid.
The Post said Trump was “telling allies that he plans to run again for president,” but also said many “veteran advisers don’t want a role in the 2024 bid after a series of federal investigations have nabbed many.” them, and they fear a hard battle.” I could lose”.
A Trump spokesman told the Post that the former president “continues to drive the GOP march toward a historic midterm election,” saying “America is legitimately hungry and excited about what’s next.”
In 2004 LaCivita, a former US Marineorganized Speedboat Veterans for the Truththat in one of the most shameless episodes in US political history, he tried to cast doubt on Kerry’s record in Vietnam, a conflict that the current Republican president, George W. Bush, had avoided.
The fast boats were US Navy riverboats on which Kerry served, earning medals including the Silver Star. Kerry later he became involved in protests against the Vietnam War, before entering politics and becoming a senator from Massachusetts. After his unsuccessful bid for the presidency, he was Secretary of State under Barack Obama. He is now Joe Biden’s climate envoy.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which became Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, was supposedly nonpolitical, but was in fact funded by major Republican donors.
The group previewed its attacks on Kerry in television ads and a book. The effort generated considerable controversy, with John McCain, a former prisoner of war and later a Republican senator from Arizona, calling it “dishonorable and dishonorable.”
But the group demonstrated an effective campaign presence, leading to the term “Swiftboating” entering the American political lexicon, denoting “a false or unfair political attack or smear campaign.”
In a column from 2004the New York Times examined, and thus publicly repeated, every claim put forth by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Citing requests from “conservative readers,” the registration document asked: “That’s right John Kerry A war hero or a medal hoarding fraud?
After an extensive and critical examination of Kerry’s military career and statements about it, the Times concluded: “Mr. Kerry has stretched the truth here and there, but he earned his decorations.
“And the Swift Boat Veterans, contradicted by official records and virtually everyone who witnessed the incidents, are participating in one of the ugliest smears in modern history. united states politics.”