Politics

DNC attacks RNC’s call for Obama ad investigation: ‘Disgraceful, desperate and politically motivated’

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
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The Democratic National Committee jabbed at the Republican National Committee Monday for calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether President Obama had used the White House to record a political advertisement.

The RNC requested an investigation after reports surfaced that Obama may have used government property to film a political advertisement. The spot is an indirect request by the president for people to contribute $5 or more for the chance of “Dinner with Barack and Joe [Biden].” (RNC wants probe into Obama fundraising video)

“This is a disgraceful, desperate and politically-motivated attempt at getting headlines by a Republican Party awash in special interest cash which is fighting to preserve tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires at the expense of seniors,” DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement.

“This is also an effort to distract from the fact that the President has run the most open and transparent White House and campaign ever while the GOP and its candidates could not survive without being in the pockets of big oil, insurance companies and other special interests,” Woodhouse added.

RNC chairman Reince Priebus asked Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate where the ad was filmed and whether it was legal. “According to multiple individuals with knowledge of the White House’s rooms and layout, the video appears to have been recorded in the Map Room,” Priebus wrote to Holder. “According to news reports, however, the White House Counsel has indicated that the video was filmed somewhere in the residential portion of the White House.”

Woodhouse brushes Priebus’s allegations off as “political games” and calls on the GOP to “come clean and tell the American people who exactly among their special interest backers they are working for to end Medicare, slash student loans and place more burdens on the middle class in exchange for preserving tax breaks for corporate lobbyists, corporate jet owners and hedge fund managers.”