Democrats Launch Smear Attacks on Amy Coney Barrett’s Adopted Children

Democrats began smearing Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Friday night before President Donald Trump even nominated her to become the next Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, which he is expected to do on Saturday afternoon.

Dana Houle, a Democrat activist who was once a chief of staff on Capitol Hill to a Democrat lawmaker, tweeted Friday night that he hopes Barrett is investigated over the children she and her husband adopted from Haiti. “I would love to know which adoption agency Amy Coney Barrett & her husband used to adopt the two children they brought here from Haiti,” Houle wrote.

“So here’s a Q: Does the press even investigate details of Barrett’s adoptions from Haiti?” Houle wrote in a follow-up tweet. “Some adoptions from Haiti were legit. Many were sketchy as hell. And if the press learned they were unethical & maybe illegal adoptions, would they report it? Or not bc it involves her children”

In a third follow-up tweet, Houle added: “Would it matter if her kids were scooped up by ultra-religious Americans, or Americans weren’t scrupulous intermediaries & the kids were taken when there was family in Haiti? I dunno. I think it does, but maybe it doesn’t, or shouldn’t.”

According to his LinkedIn page, Houle is a former campaign manager to several top Democrats like former Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) and current Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT). He also was Hodes’ chief of staff in Congress. On his website, Houle describes himself as an effective Democrat operative who has taken out sitting Republicans. Houle writes about himself:

In Michigan I worked in organized labor, as a policy analyst in the legislature, and managed campaigns from state representative up to statewide office. Despite my love for Detroit, in 2005 I moved to Washington DC to do national politics. I’ve managed two winning campaigns against incumbent Republican Congressmen in New England, served as a chief of staff on Capitol Hill and managed races in Minnesota, Kansas and Louisiana. I’ve also been blogging about politics at various places since 2003.

Several top Republicans quickly seized on Houle’s tweets, including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Tom Cotton (R-AR), who called the Democrat tactics of smearing Barrett and her family despicable.

After Hawley and Cotton hammered Houle for his smears of Barrett’s adopted children, Houle backed down and said in subsequent tweets he should not have said these things.

But while he said he should not have tweeted what he did, in several followup tweets, Houle doubled down on the attacks on Barrett and her family:

Houle was hardly the only top Democrat on Friday, before Trump even announced Barrett as his pick, to attack her adopted children. John Lee Brougher, the managing director of NextGen America–a top leftist PAC funded by billionaire Tom Steyer–also raised questions about Barrett’s adoption of children from Haiti in a tweet on Friday night:

Notre Dame political science professor Patrick Deneen defended Barrett, who was also a tenured professor at Notre Dame, from the leftist attacks on Friday night:

Trump is expected to formally nominate Barrett on Saturday evening to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away last Friday. Ginsburg laid in state at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, the first woman in U.S. history to do so, after memorial services earlier this week at the Supreme Court.

UPDATE 10:21 a.m. ET:

After the publication of this article, both Houle and Brougher hid their Twitter profiles from the public making their accounts private.