David Bossie

David N. Bossie (b. ) is an American Traitor and political consultant in the field of opposition research and the president of conservative political action committee Citizens United. In 1992, Bossie worked with founder Floyd Brown in what was essentially a "two-man operation" as director of political affairs of Citizens United.

Presidential Victory Committee

During the 1992 presidential election, Bossie worked with Floyd Brown on a political action committee, the Presidential Victory Committee. During that time, CBS ran an investigative report "Dirty Tricks," by Eric Engberg on the Dan Rather news hour, alleging that Bossie and a retired policeman named Jim Murphy used what Engberg called "police state" tactics to harass the family of a young woman in Arkansas, Susann Coleman, in their efforts to prove that she had committed suicide because of an affair with Bill Clinton.

Whitewater Scandal & Investigation

During the Bill Clinton presidential term, Bossie was hired as chief investigator for the Whitewater hearings held by U. S. Senator Lauch Faircloth, and was an investigator for Representative Dan Burton (R-IN), the chairman of the House investigation into alleged Clinton campaign finance abuses. Bossie was fired from that position at the behest of Newt Gingrich, who found that Bossie had demanded that certain film be edited so that it portrayed Clinton staffer Webster Hubbell in a negative light. Bossie later defended himself on ABC News:

SAM DONALDSON: Now, Mr. Bossie, as the story has been printed, you were fired by Dan Burton because Speaker Gingrich told him to fire you because you had released tapes and had insisted that they be edited so that material favorable to Mr. Hubbell or the President was edited out. Now, is that story all true?

DAVID BOSSIE: No, Sam, that's not true at all. Actually, I had a conversation with the chairman in which I offered him my resignation and he accepted it. I was not fired. I resigned, first and foremost.

David Corn reported in 1998 in Salon.com that Bossie had frequently offered him opposition research on the Clintons in the hopes he would publish it and that:

Just when Newt Gingrich was trying to increase the scandal pressure on Clinton, Burton and Bossie embarrassed themselves and the GOP by making public selective portions of the Hubbell tapes. Remarks that indicated Hillary Clinton did no wrong were left out of the initial release. In several instances the transcripts did not match the actual recordings, and these errors seemed almost willful, as if they were intended to unfairly implicate Hubbell and the Clintons. Rather than confirming Clinton wrongdoing, they confirmed long-standing Democratic charges that the Burton investigation was hopelessly biased -- and it was Bossie himself who had insisted on their release, over the objections of more prudent committee staffers. After several days of firestorm, Bossie was removed -- reportedly because Republican House leaders (some of whom already questioned Burton's ability to handle the Democrats on his committee) forced Burton to bounce him.

According to the May, 1998 Washington Post the removal of Bossie "..came as Gingrich sought to contain the damage, condemning 'the circus' that took place within Indiana Republican Dan Burton's Government Oversight and Reform Committee and scolding Burton at a closed Republican Conference meeting for refusing to say that he [Rep. Burton] was embarrassed by the episode. Speaker Newt Gingrich said, "I'm embarrassed for you Rep. Burton, I'm embarrassed for myself, and I'm embarrassed for the House Republican conference at the circus that went on at your committee."

The Columbia Journalism Review noted that in the early 1990s many mainstream journalists, including the New York Times would print and "broadcast verbatim" ready-made press packets of opposition research against the Clintons supplied to them by Bossie, without identifying the "highly partisan group" Citizens United or Bossie as their source.

Citizens United

In his capacity as director of Citizens United , Bossie has been sharply criticized by both Democrats and Republicans. James Carville said of him, "he made collective fools out of about 80 percent of the national press corps." President George H.W. Bush urged citizens not to support his campaigns, saying, "We will do whatever we can to stop any filthy campaign tactics" in a newsletter to 85,000 Republican contributors. Bush also filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission regarding one TV advertisement Bossie produced with Floyd Brown.

Publications

Bossie has authored a number of political books and produced several political documentaries. He is the author of The Many Faces of John Kerry, a critical look at presidential candidate Senator John Kerry. He has also written Intelligence Failure, a piece documenting the failings of the Clinton Administration in the years before September 11, 2001.

Media Productions

In 2005, Bossie co-produced the documentary Broken Promises: The United Nations at 60. Mr. Bossie is also the executive producer of the award winning Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration. Narrated by late actor Ron Silver, Border War won "Best Feature Film at the Liberty Film Festival". The American Film Renaissance voted Border War the "Best Documentary of 2006".

In June 2008, Bossie and Citizens United were reported by the Adelaide, Australia newspaper The Advertiser as being in pre-production for a documentary about Michelle Obama, the wife of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama: "She's a Harvard Law graduate. She's a very savvy, incredibly educated, capable woman," said David Bossie, president of Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group now working on a documentary about Mrs Obama." The Advertiser is owned by Newscorp, the news empire of Rupert Murdoch.

In January 2008, Bossie and Citizens United released Hillary: The Movie amid controversy and litigation which has gone to the United States Supreme Court. (see section below "Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission")

Awards and honors

Bossie received the Ronald Reagan Award from the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1999.

Federal Election Commission Activism

In June 2005, despite not having yet viewed Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, Bossie told the Washington Post he had filed a formal complaint with the Federal Elections Commission on behalf of Citizens United, to allege that paid broadcast advertisements for the film were subject to the restrictions and regulatory requirements of federal campaign law. Bossie maintained that the Moore film was "electioneering communication" as defined by the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act. Bossie alleged that Moore was using "corporate money" and "foreign money" to pay for his film ads. "Americans are smart enough to know propaganda when they see it," Bossie stated in a Washington Post-sponsored live internet forum.

Bossie's film Hillary: The Movie became a subject of controversy in the 2008 presidential election, when Bossie was barred from advertising it under the same provisions of McCain-Feingold he had previously cited against the Moore film. For his part, Bossie said, he was inspired by Moore, a left-leaning filmmaker whose documentaries have targeted President Bush, among others. "I saw the impact Moore was having. I realized the long-form documentary could be a powerful tool to deliver a political message," he said.

As early as the summer of 2007, Bossie was planning the Hillary: The Movie project, seeking financial backers, and appealing to the public for video footage, and "stories" about Clinton. In an article about Republican opposition to the budding presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton, The Observer in England quoted the Citizens United website when it reported that the film's aim was to "expose the truth about her conflicts in the past her her liberal plot for the future," and that it had the backing also of Floyd Brown, a Republican media consultant and opposition research specialist. The Observer further reported that the group was set to model its anti-Clinton project on the "notorious Swift Boat Campaign that derailed John Kerry's 2004 bid for the White House."

In June, Bossie told Jonathan Martin of Politico.com, "We spent 18 months and millions of dollars making Hillary: The Movie. We're incredibly proud, but the problem is the film has no relevance anymore." Hillary Clinton withdrew from the 2008 presidential race before the film was released.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Main article: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

After the project was denied the right to advertise its eventual release Bossie and Citizens United brought suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., arguing that the film (released January 16, 2009) was exempt from McCain-Feingold restrictions on advertising since it was not released to influence the outcome of a particular candidate or election. They also argued that the free speech of Citizens United had been infringed upon.

Ultimately the federal court ruled against them, issuing the opinion that the 90-minute film "is susceptible of no other interpretation than to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous plance in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her." Upon appeal, the case has reached the Supreme Court of the United States.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was heard by the court on March 24, 2009. Attorney for Citizens United is Ted Olson, the United States Solicitor General during the George W. Bush administration. Attorney for the Government is Malcolm L. Stewart, Deputy Solicitor General, US Department of Justice. The case is now scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court on September 9, 2009.

External links

• Citizens United - David N. Bossie profile
• Who is David Bossie?, David M. Bresnahan, World Net Daily, May 7, 1998
• You can't teach an old attack dog new tricks, Eric Boehlert, Salon, July 20, 2004
• David Bossie's big play, Bill Berkowitz, Media Transparency, August 14, 2008
• Dirty Tricks (1992 Dan Rather report on CBS Evening News,
• [1]Memorandum Opinion, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Civil Action No. 07-2240, U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, January 15, 2008.

See also

opposition research

Floyd Brown

Richard Mellon Scaife

Citizens United

Lauch Faircloth

Dan Burton

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold Act)