Donald Trump has openly boasted about buying politicians in the past and called that a “broken system” moments later. Now, as part of a revamp of his campaign for the general election, he has hired someone who helped make getting political influence in exchange for money a whole lot easier.
Trump announced on Sept. 1 that joining his campaign as deputy campaign manager is David Bossie, the president of Citizens United. Citizens United is the conservative non-profit organization whose name has become synonymous with the influence of big money in politics after the Supreme Court eliminated limits on corporate campaign spending in the 2010 in the seminal Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission decision.
Bossie, who will take a leave from Citizens United and the ”Defeat Crooked Hillary” super PAC while he is part of Trump’s campaign, also is an arch-nemesis of Hillary and Bill Clinton. Most recently, his organization led the charge examining the relationship between Clinton’s staff at State and the Clinton Foundation.
Bossie made his name in the 1990s, first as a staffer on the Senate committee on Whitewater, the investigation into the Clintons’ investments. At the Trump campaign he will be tasked with designing attacks against the Democratic candidate and digging into Clinton’s past controversies, according to The Washington Post.
Bossie joins the campaign as an insider, with close ties to Stephen Bannon, the campaign’s CEO, and Kellyanne Conway, the new manager. He is also reportedly friendly with the candidate himself, who called Bossie “solid” and “smart,” adding that he “loves politics, knows how to win,” the Post reported.
“This is the latest sign that Donald Trump has put the most extreme elements of the right-wing fringe in the driver’s seat of his campaign,” said John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in a statement.