(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Joe Biden is expected Tuesday to announce his 2024 re-election bid in a video, with outlets reporting that White House aide Julie Chavez Rodriguez is being tapped as campaign manager.
The campaign itself, however, is reportedly to be directly run by tax-paid White House staff, a move that is likely to raise concerns about potential violations of federal law that bar the abuse of government to fuel a political campaign.
“While Rodriguez will formally manage the campaign, the effort will also be largely guided from the West Wing, where top aides Anita Dunn, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti will also play central roles,” CNN reported Monday.
Biden’s imminent announcement comes weeks after the White House tapped social media influencers to promote Democrat talking points to young voters. The White House reportedly planned on giving the influencers, including two stars tied to the communist Chinese-owned TikTok app, “their own briefing room at the White House,” Axios reported, in what was called a move to increase Biden’s standing “among young voters who are crucial to Democrats’ success in elections.”
A Biden campaign closely aligned with the White House could also trigger potential violations of the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits federal workers from using their governmental power to participate in politically filed acts. The Biden administration is no stranger to the Act. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was caught violating the Act earlier this month. Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, who is also expected to have a campaign role, and Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge received slaps on the wrist for also violating federal law.
Valerie Biden Owens, the president’s embattled sister and long-time political advisor, is also joining the re-election campaign.
Disgraced first son Hunter Biden is reportedly exploiting the People’s House as a hiding spot after the mother of his estranged child seeks financial compensation for lack of child support. Hunter’s eldest daughter, Naomi Biden and husband Peter Neil crashed at the White House for months before marrying at the South Lawn.
The extent of Owens’ or any other Biden family member’s roles in the campaign remain unclear. Hunter avoided participating in any campaign events in the runup of the 2020 election, primarily because of a New York Post expose on an abandoned laptop that allegedly contained damaging information about the president.
The Biden family recently came under House GOP’s scrutiny as the House Oversight Committee pushes a financial investigation into business dealings tied to President Biden. In recent days, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., raised the alarms on at least a dozen Biden relatives who are implicated in foreign business schemes, saying that the “entire family” had the ability to influence foreign policy to their financial benefit.
“There’s not going to be anybody left for a Christmas picture if the [Department of Justice] did their job,” Comer said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Features.
While CBS News reported that the White House staff are “likely” to split their time between official government business and political efforts, the White House offered no details on how those efforts would be implemented.
Former President Donald Trump was accused of steamrolling political norms “by using the White House and the powers of the federal government in service to this reelection effort.” Much of the media’s concerns on the alleged politicization of the White House by Trump aides are nowhere to be seen ahead of Biden’s announcement.
