Joe Biden’s Democratic allies plotted a secret intimidation campaign to keep a third-party challenger out of the 2024 election and thus ensure his victory, even as polls showed voters wanted another option and there were concerns about the president’s health.
Their plan included “bird chasing” members of Congress, who would support such an option by sending activists to confront them at their offices.
It also details a targeted campaign of intimidation against No Labels founder Nancy Jacobson and her husband, Mark Penn, a longtime Democratic operative. The plan was to send clowns to block their Georgetown home and drive their neighbors crazy with the early morning noise.
No Labels – of which Penn is not a part – launched a $70 million effort to field an alternative presidential candidate and get a third-party line on the state ballot. But the centrist group abandoned its efforts after Biden’s allies damaged its ability to recruit a contender.
No Labels is now fighting back in federal court and public documents show an incredible proposal from Democratic strategists to pave the way for Biden to win a second term, using techniques straight out of a spy novel.
“Everyone likes to wake up, especially the neighbors,” the email said. ‘For this we showed up at six in the morning with a truck containing marching and singing musical artists and activists. Usually it takes an hour. We can hire Getty to get the event on cable,” a Democratic strategist wrote in emails exchanged between several people involved in efforts to oppose No Labels.
Other options for targeting the couple included “hiring clowns to hang out in their neighborhood,” embarrassing them at the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner and targeting them with negative ads in a local Georgetown Society -newspaper.
“The total cost of this proposal is $180,000, at a low level up to $400,000 for 2 to 4 months of intensive activity,” the email said.
Not all documents in the case have been made public, so the final figure could be higher. It is also unclear how deeply involved top White House officials and Democratic Party leaders were in the plan.
President Joe Biden’s allies plotted a secret campaign to keep him in power
The proposal included tactics to harass No Labels founder Nancy Jacobson and her husband Mark Penn
The emails were sent in May 2023, when the full extent of Biden’s health problems remained hidden from the public. Donald Trump still had the Republican nomination, but was the frontrunner.
Polls at the time showed voters were desperate for a third option. An NBC News poll released in April found that 60% of American adults did not want Trump to run, and 70% did not want Biden to run.
No Labels explored a “unity ticket” with the goal of giving Americans that option.
Democratic operatives, clearly concerned about the situation, plotted to stop it. Many Democratic groups publicly criticized No Labels at the time, accusing the group of trying to ensure Trump’s re-election.
But the court documents reveal a whole second level of tactics that go beyond the norms of public editorials and on-the-record citations.
The proposal also included plans for “bird dogs” members of Congress who were part of the Problems Solvers Caucus, a group that created No Labels to find bipartisan solutions to the country’s problems.
“An important and effective method to strengthen this fight against No Labels is to go directly to their minions in Congress,” the proposal read.
“We let activists talk to them quietly in the hallways while they are being recorded. We can then post and share the good videos. We can bring together the entire Problem Solvers Caucus in the House of Representatives and their key allies in the Senate.”
“We will name and shame the members of the Problem Solvers Caucus affiliated with No Labels,” the memo promised.
Ultimately, the proposal was never adopted. The Washington Post first reported some details of the campaign. DailyMail.com is the first to publish the full memo detailing the harassment campaign.
The detailed proposal outlined by Democratic strategists
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is a prominent Biden supporter and the new George Soros of political finance
One of the men behind the emails is Dmitri Mehlhorn, co-founder of Investing in US, a political operation funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Hoffman is the new George Soros of political finance and he has invested heavily in getting Biden a second term.
He donated $2 million to help fund the campaign during the New Hampshire primary, in which Democratic voters were urged to write Biden’s name on the New Hampshire primary ballot.
Biden had not registered for the New Hampshire primary to comply with a new Democratic National Committee rule that made South Carolina the first state to hold a primary.
In any case, New Hampshire held its first primaries in the country, which Biden won as a write-in.
Hoffman is a huge anti-Trumper. He helped fund writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault lawsuit against Trump and supported former Rep. Liz Cheney’s 2022 reelection bid, which ultimately failed.
He and Mehlhorn split in July 2024 after Mehlhorn was forced to apologize for comments he made after the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, which Mehlhorn suggested was staged.
Mehlhorn left Investing in US and joined the Lincoln Project.
Biden ultimately dropped out of the presidential race after his disastrous debate with Trump in July. Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee and lost to Trump in a landslide.