WASHINGTON—Conservative heavyweights joined forces with establishment figures to form Our Principles PAC, a super-PAC focused on persuading Americans of why Donald Trump is a deadly threat to conservatism who should not be the Republican nominee.
Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell—who sits on numerous conservative boards, including the NRA, Club for Growth, and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty—is one of the conservative luminaries working with the super-PAC. CRC Public Relations, well known for championing conservative causes, is running the media for Our Principles PAC.
On the establishment side, Breitbart News has already quoted a number of moderate establishment leaders who are organizers of the PAC or working with it, including Ron Kaufman from the Bush 41 White House and the Romney Campaign, former Rep. Vin Weber, former Republican Party Chairman Mike Duncan, as well as Romney deputy campaign manager Katie Packer (heading the PAC) and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman.
These people disagree on many political and policy issues but agree on one thing: Donald Trump should not be the Republican nominee for president.
Our Principles PAC has unleashed a torrent of ads going after Trump, available at trumpquestions.com. It’s headline ad is “The Trump Tapes: Volume 1,” a collection of Trump’s previous statements on immigration, healthcare, abortion, and guns, taking the liberal side each time, as well as statements of support for Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.
This is followed by more focused ads regarding Trump’s positions, history, or handling of issues. These include attacks regarding women and violence which have filled the airwave over the past couple days, as well as a class-action fraud lawsuit against Trump, currently scheduled for trial in federal court this summer.
Speaking exclusively to Breitbart News, Blackwell explains, “Trump is not a consistent conservative, if he’s ever been a conservative. He’s not a consistent Republican, and has previously aligned himself with other political parties.”
Citing various public reports, Blackwell, who also served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, adds, “Trump believes he can shut down houses of worship, have the government seize private property to give to private corporations, and order the U.S. military to target the civilian wives and children of terrorists, in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other treaties the United States joined in good faith.”
Blackwell goes on to say:
But there are also the things we don’t know. There’s evidence of Trump’s rejection of conservative principles that Trump is concealing from the American public. He tells the American people that he’s now a conservative. But what’s his top issue there? Immigration. Yet we hear reports that he told the editors of the New York Times in an off-the-record exchange that he doesn’t mean what he’s telling GOP voters about building a wall and deporting illegals. His rivals have called on him to release that tape. He refuses. What if those reports are true? If so, then conservatives who care about immigration are being defrauded. Voters deserve to know the truth before he becomes the nominee.
Turning to what he calls a “nation-changing issue,” Blackwell adds:
Yet another issue is the Supreme Court. Blackwell notes that on the campaign trail Trump mentioned the names of two conservative judges offered by a knowledgeable advisor as ones he would consider for a Supreme Court nomination, but the reality is that in decades of fierce fights over the nation’s highest court, Trump has never lifted a finger to support good judges or oppose bad ones. Instead, the only judge he has previously supported was his sister, a judicial activist who says that restrictions even on partial-birth abortion are unconstitutional.
Pointing to an article he coauthored today on the Supreme Court with arguably the foremost leader of constitutional conservatism living today, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Blackwell points out that from gun rights, to the EPA, to religious liberty, to the War on Terror, the Supreme Court this election is “the whole ballgame,” and Republicans cannot give the power to nominate those justices to someone with no past record of supporting conservative judges.
In summary, Blackwell says, “Folks in the conservative movement—not only leaders, but millions of everyday Americans—have the right to send Trump through the washing machine. They deserve to know what he’s really all about before giving him all the powers of the presidency, making him the most powerful man in the world.”
Ken Klukowski is legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.