The re-election campaign of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is using the emerging scandal enveloping the Internal Revenue Service and the image of a disgraced former president to slam President Barack Obama in a new online video obtained and reported by ABC News on Wednesday.
According to ABC, the online video draws a connection between Obama and former President Richard Nixon. Using footage from Nixon’s interviews with David Frost, the video shows a clip of the late former president asserting, “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” It is also uses footage of IRS officials testifying before Congress on the agency’s improper targeting of conservative groups.
The ABC report wasn’t clear on whether the video was a paid ad or merely an online video, a point McConnell’s campaign manager Jesse Benton clarified to TPM in an email Wednesday. “It is an online video we are targetting to a broad audience,” Benton wrote.
McConnell is considered to be one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents entering the 2014 midterms. A survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling released Tuesday showed him dead even with a potential Democratic challenger, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.
This post has been updated.
