THE BUZZ: FLYING THE UNFRIENDLY SKIES — GOP Rep. Mike Garcia has outflanked the competition for his blue-tinged district seat in three straight elections. But Democrats are seizing on a new opportunity to go after one of their top targets — by hammering Garcia for selling Boeing stock just when Congress was investigating the troubled aerospace company. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is betting that questions over Garcia’s suspicious stock transaction in 2020 — coupled with his failure to properly disclose the transaction on time — will cause enough turbulence to flip the Northern Los Angeles County district, one of a handful of races that could determine control of the House. Garcia sold up to $50,000 in Boeing stock in August 2020, according to a Daily Beast report last year on the trades. At the time, Garcia sat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which was in the midst of investigating the company’s handling of crashes involving its 737 Max Airliner. One month after Garcia sold the stock, the committee, which was then led by Democrats, released a scathing report on Boeing. Garcia also failed to disclose the sale by the required 45-day deadline, filing the paperwork only after he eked out a 333-vote win in November 2020. Ethics groups filed complaints, but Garcia has not faced any disciplinary action. The DCCC is releasing a digital ad as an opening salvo. The ad, shared exclusively with Playbook, features a montage of local news anchors reporting on the Daily Beast story, as well as disapproving person-on-the-street interviews with local voters. “Cash-it-in Congressman Mike Garcia chose to betray the trust of his constituents for inexcusable personal gain — withholding critical information about his self-serving conduct from California families — and we’re going to ensure that misconduct comes back to bite him this November,” said Dan Gottlieb, spokesperson for the DCCC. Garcia’s campaign is pushing back hard on the substance of the hit, saying that Garcia was not privy to the Democrats’ report on Boeing before it was public. It provided a statement from the GOP committee spokesperson stating that “to our knowledge none of that information was ever requested or shared with any Committee Republican rank and file members until the investigation and report were finished and publicly released.” “This makes claims of insider trading an impossibility. In short, Rep. Garcia was not privy to any information that wasn’t public domain,” said Liam Anderson, Garcia’s spokesperson. As for the failure to disclose the sale on time, Anderson said the congressman “immediately rectified the accidental late filing. Everything is filed and everything is public. People are sick of these blatant lies and see right through these lazy attempts to smear their political opponents.” Garcia has been a tantalizing target for Democrats. The district was once a GOP stronghold but shifted leftward with the influx of Angelenos fleeing the high-cost heart of the city. Democrats now hold a nearly 12-point registration advantage and Biden won the district in 2020 by a similar margin. Democrats have followed their national playbook as they go after Garcia, highlighting his opposition to abortion and trying to tie him to former President Donald Trump. But they believe the additional messaging about Boeing and potential insider trading is a promising addition for a number of reasons. Boeing is in the throes of its own reputational tailspin, with the company agreeing this week to plead guilty to fraud charges related to two deadly plane crashes in 2018 and 2019. Any news story regarding aerospace is especially resonant in the district, a hub of the industry. Garcia is a former fighter pilot and his Democratic challenger, George Whitesides, is the former CEO of Virgin Galactic. And Democrats hope this kind of attack can reinvigorate disaffected voters who will be crucial to winning the seat. Their internal polling (which, as always, should be taken with a grain of salt) found that 50 percent of respondents had “very serious concerns” about the Boeing allegations. “When we look at the voters less motivated to vote in this election, this is a really meaningful hit against him,” said Molly Murphy, who does polling for the Whitesides campaign. “[These voters] are generally down on politics, generally distrusting of politicians. This is a message that shines a big light about why they feel that way.” Ben Petersen, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, noted that Democrats had tried in past races to ding Garcia for failing to disclose a number of stock trades — with little to show for it. “The DCCC resurrecting this zombie lie after it was repeatedly debunked is destined to fail again,” Petersen said. “Peddling false tinfoil hat fantasies is a sure sign extreme soft-on-crime megadonor George Whitesides is grasping at straws as he fails to gain traction.” GOOD MORNING. Happy Wednesday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. You can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts. Or drop us a line at lkorte@politico.com and dgardiner@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @Lara_Korte. WHERE’S GAVIN? In Sacramento County giving an update on fire season. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment