A pack of former Breitbart staffers are publicizing their plans to create a political action committee that would pressure lawmakers into falling in line with Donald Trump’s political agenda.
The Atlantic reported Friday that the “America First Project” didn’t yet have much to its name aside from the participation of a handful of former Breitbart staffers and an activist who previously ran the “Black Men for Bernie” group.
Dustin Stockton, a former Breitbart reporter who will serve as the PAC’s chief strategist, told The Atlantic that the group would run for the time being out of an existing organization called Western Representation PAC, with a media arm called “Big League Politics” to come in the distant future.
Stockton, who was involved in the Tea Party movement before he joined Breitbart, said the group would aim to fundraise $8-10 million in its first year with the help of a 200,000-person email list.
The strategy Stockton described to The Atlantic echoes the Tea Party playbook, complete with organized town hall confrontations and a team of reporters that would “ambush” unfriendly lawmakers. The group also had brainstormed giving out “Trump Enforcement Posse” or “Trump Enforcement Team” badges as donor rewards, according to the report.
Infamous ex-Breitbarter Patrick Howley, known for mocking his former colleague Michelle Fields after Corey Lewandowski grabbed her arm last year at a Trump event, is also involved in the group (Howley also once published crude, sexist tweets about reporter Rosie Gray, for which he was forced to apologize. Gray wrote The Atlantic’s story on the new PAC).
Howley told the publication he envisions the group as an “advocacy organization that is going to advocate for Trump administration policies that generally fall under a populist-nationalist window.”
