The war between former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a fight between mentor and protege, is intensifying with the release of a new Super-PAC ad from Team Bush excoriating Rubio over his decision to fundraise instead of attending critical national-security briefings.
“Days after the Paris attacks, Senators came together for a top secret briefing on the terrorist threat,” an announcer says in the opening of the ad, just out from Right to Rise, the Super-PAC backing Bush for president.
“Marco Rubio was missing, fundraising in California instead. Two weeks later, terrorists struck again in San Bernardino. And where was Marco? Fundraising again in New Orleans. Over the last three years, Rubio has missed important national security hearings and missed more total votes than any other senator. Politics first, that’s the Rubio way.”
The brutal advertisement—30 seconds in length—is all factually correct.
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To the claim that Rubio has missed more briefings and votes than any other senator in the U.S. Senate—the final claim in the ad—the Bush Super PAC also has good sourcing: Politico, BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post have all had reports detailing it.
The Politico story, from then-Politico reporter Manu Raju—who’s since left for CNN—ran in July of 2015 under a brutal headline for Rubio: “Marco Rubio, Absentee Senator: The Florida senator grilled Obama officials on Iran last week, but he’s been playing hooky more than the rest of the 2016 class.”
“Rubio has skipped votes during high-profile fights over national security, trade, energy and education policy,” Raju wrote.
He has missed private hearings during a critical stage in the Iran talks, a public forum on China and a private briefing on the U.S. strategy on the Islamic State. Last month, a California congressional candidate tweeted a picture with Rubio in Los Angeles on the same day the Florida senator missed a closed-door Foreign Relations Committee session on Iran and a procedural vote on the Export-Import Bank’s future, a flash point in the presidential campaign.
The BuzzFeed piece, from Andrew Kaczynski, ran on April 7 under a headline: “Rubio Skipped Closed-Door Briefings On ISIS For Fundraising Trip.”
“While Sen. Marco Rubio was on a big fundraising swing through California, he missed a top secret intelligence briefing on ISIS from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and two closed Intelligence Committee briefings from that period, according to records,” Kaczynski wrote.
Rubio spent a week in California for what was deemed an ‘aggressive’ fundraising trip. On the day of one hearing Rubio appeared at a $1,000 per-person admission Beverly Hills fundraiser. The trip benefited the Rubio Victory Committee, which is a joint fundraising committee of Rubio’s Senate campaign and Reclaim America PAC, according to Los Angeles’ CBS-affiliate. The closed briefing on the ‘Campaign against ISIS,’ featured Nicholas J. Rasmussen, the directer of the National Counterterrorism Center, Christine Wormuth, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, retired general John R. Allen, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIS, and Major General Steven M. Shepro the vice director for strategic plans and policy.
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More:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...choice-fundraise-skipping-security-briefings/
