David Bossie

David Norman Bossie (born November 1, 1965)[1][2] is an American political activist. Since 2000, he has been president and chairman of conservative advocacy group Citizens United and in 2016, Bossie was the deputy campaign manager to the Donald Trump presidential campaign.[3]

David Bossie
Bossie at the 2017 CPAC
Republican National Committeeman
from Maryland
Assumed office
May 14, 2016
Preceded byLouis Pope
Personal details
Born
David Norman Bossie

(1965-11-01) November 1, 1965
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse(s)Susan
Children4
EducationTowson University
University of Maryland, College Park

Early life

Bossie grew up in Massachusetts.[2] He attended Towson State University and the University of Maryland, but dropped out before graduation. When he was 18 years old he volunteered in Ronald Reagan's reelection campaign.[4]

Career
Bossie addressing the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.

A volunteer firefighter in his youth, Bossie dropped out of university to pursue politics. Bossie was the youth director of Sen. Bob Dole's 1988 presidential campaign.[5]

Congressional investigator

After the Republicans won control of the United States House of Representatives in the 1994 elections, Dan Burton (R-IN) became chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform and new Oversight. In 1997, he hired Bossie as chief investigator to look into possible campaign finance abuses by U.S. President Bill Clinton.[6]

By May 1998, Burton came under intense partisan pressure; even fellow Republicans complained that committee staff had published redacted tapes and transcripts of former United States Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell's prison telephone calls omitting some exculpatory passages. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pressed Burton to seek Bossie's resignation.[7] Shortly thereafter, Burton accepted Bossie's resignation.[8]

Citizens United
Bossie speaking about Citizens United at the 2013 CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland.

During his tenure at Citizens United, which he had joined as a researcher after Bill Clinton was elected in 1992,[9] the organization focused increasingly on producing film documentaries through its Citizens United Productions division. Their films have included:

Citizens United hoped to begin distribution of the feature film Hillary: The Movie in January or February 2008. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 made that an unlawful electioneering communication.[10] They sued, unsuccessfully, for an injunction to prohibit the Federal Election Commission from enforcement of those provisions of BCRA on First Amendment grounds.[11]

In a 2010 landmark decision, the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission for Citizens United. For-profit corporations and not-for-profit corporations may now advertise and broadcast messages of a political nature without limits on how much they can spend and with few limits on the timing and nature of the messages.[12]

Trump campaign

In September 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump hired Bossie to be his new deputy campaign manager.[13]

Political commentator

In June 2018, Bossie, a regular guest on Fox News programs, said that African-American co-guest Joel Payne was "out of his cotton-picking mind.” He later apologized.[14] Fox News suspended him for two weeks, calling the remarks "deeply offensive and wholly inappropriate."[15]

In an April 17, 2020 Fox News editorial tribute to Donald Trump's leadership, Bossie falsely asserted that "we’ve managed to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic". The average daily death rate from COVID-19 in the US at the time was more than 4,000 dead per day, by far the worst rate to that point in the pandemic. Bossie made other false statements in praise of Trump, particularly that "he has given governors the ability to tailor the reopening to the needs of their individual states". Only days earlier Trump had claimed falsely that he has "total authority" over when states would rescind their quarantine rules; despite Bossie's false assertion, the president cannot give governors that ability since the governors already possess the authority in their own right.[16]

Publications

Bossie is the author of The Many Faces of John Kerry, a hostile look at the Democratic nominee in the 2004 United States presidential election, then-Senator John Kerry. He has also written Intelligence Failure, a piece alleging failings on the part of the national security apparatus during the Clinton Administration in the years before September 11, 2001, when a terrorist attack caught the Bush Administration totally unprepared. Bossie is also the author of the 2008 publication Hillary: the Politics of Personal Destruction and co-author of the 2000 release Prince Albert: the Life and Lies of Al Gore with Floyd Brown.

At the convention of the Tea Party movement Convention, Bossie debuted the documentary Generation Zero, focusing on the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and insinuating that it was caused by the supposed selfishness of the entire Baby Boomer generation. The documentary, produced by Bossie for Citizens United Productions, had been written and directed by Steve Bannon.

In December 2017, Let Trump Be Trump, a memoir co-authored by Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, was published by Center Street. The book chronicles their experiences working on Donald Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign.[17]

Personal

David met his wife, Susan, through his political work. They reside in Montgomery County, Maryland with their four children. Bossie received the Ronald Reagan Award from the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1999. He also was ranked number two in Politico's top 50 most influential people in American politics in 2015, tied with Charlie Spies.[18]

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See also

References
  1. "LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies (Library of Congress)". id.loc.gov. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  2. Bossie, David (February 20, 2010). [rtsp://video1.c-span.org/project/c04/c04_wj100304_bossie.rm "Interview to David Bossie"]. Washington Journal (Interview). C-SPAN. Retrieved January 21, 2012. (date not verified)
  3. David N. Bossie biography Archived March 24, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Citizens United official website (accessed September 21, 2008)
  4. Grove, Lloyd (November 13, 1997). "A FIREFIGHTER'S BLAZING TRAIL". The Washington Post.
  5. Fritze, John (June 18, 2016). "David Bossie, conservative activist behind Citizens United case, takes more active role in Md. politics". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved June 18, 2017.
  6. Clines, Francis X. (March 9, 1997). "'Pit Bull' Congressman Gets a Chance to Be More Aggressive". The New York Times.
  7. Alvarez, Lizette (May 11, 1998). "Top Democrat Issues Threat To Head of House Inquiry". The New York Times. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
  8. Schmitt, Eric (May 10, 1998). "May 3–9; A Top Aide Resigns". The New York Times. Retrieved January 21, 2012. Under pressure from Speaker Newt Gingrich, Representative Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican who heads the House Government and Reform Committee, accepted the resignation of the aide, David N. Bossie, a dogged anti-Clinton sleuth.
  9. Gambino, Lauren (September 3, 2016). "Trump's new hire David Bossie has decades-long history attacking Clintons". The Guardian.
  10. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (Supreme Court of the United States 2010) ("For the same reasons we uphold the application of BCRA §§201 and 311 to the ads, we affirm their application to Hillary . We find no constitutional impediment to the application of BCRA’s disclaimer and disclosure requirements to a movie broadcast via video-on-demand. And there has been no showing that, as applied in this case, these requirements would impose a chill on speech or expression.").
  11. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (January 15, 2008). "Memorandum Opinion, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" (PDF). Civil Action No. 07-2240. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
  12. "Changes in the Way Corporations Can Finance Campaign". The New York Times. January 21, 2010.
  13. Garrett, Major (September 2, 2016). "Donald Trump hires longtime president of Citizens United David Bossie to be new deputy campaign manager". CBS news. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  14. Thomsen, Jacqueline (June 24, 2018). "Ex-Trump adviser tells black Fox News guest he's out of his 'cotton-picking mind'". The Hill. Retrieved June 24, 2018.
  15. Fleishman, Glenn (June 25, 2018). "Fox News Contributor Suspended for 'Cotton-Picking' Remark'". Fortune. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
  16. Bossie, David (April 17, 2020). "David Bossie: Trump coronavirus plan carefully balances America's public health and economic needs". Retrieved April 17, 2020.
  17. Bedard, Paul (October 16, 2017). "Revealed: New Lewandowski, Bossie book 'Let Trump Be Trump'". Washington Examiner. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  18. "The POLITICO 50 - 2017 - David Bossie, Charlie Spies". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
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