Inside the Democratic plot to keep Biden in office using harassment

Democratic allies of Joe Biden plotted a secret harassment campaign to keep a third-party challenger out of the 2024 election in order to ensure his victory, even as polls showed voters wanted another option and there were concerns about the president's health.

Their plan included 'bird dogging' members of Congress who would support such an option by sending activists to confront them at their offices.

It also details a target harassment campaign against No Labels founder Nancy Jacobson and her husband, Mark Penn, a longtime Democratic operative. The plan was to send clowns to block their Georgetown home and drive their neighbors crazy with early morning noise.

No Labels - which Penn is not a part of - was running a $70 million effort to field an alternative presidential candidate and get a third-party line on state ballots. But the centrist group dropped its efforts after Biden's allies damaged their ability to recruit a contender.

No Labels is now fighting back in federal court and public documents show an incredible proposal from Democrat strategists to clear the way for Biden to win a second term, using techniques straight out of a spy novel.

'Everyone loves a good wake up action- especially the neighbors,' the email read. 'For this, we'd show up at 6am with a truck carrying musical performers and activists marching and chanting. It usually lasts for an hour. We can hire getty to get the event on the wire,' a Democratic strategist wrote in emails exchanged between various people involved with efforts to oppose No Labels.

Other options for targeting the couple included 'hire clowns to hangout on their block,' embarrassing them at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner and targeting them with negative ads in a local Georgetown society newspaper.

'The overall cost of this proposal is $180,000 on the low range to $400,000 for 2-4 months of intense activity,' the email read.

Not all the documents in the case have been made public so the final figure could be larger. It's also unclear how deeply involved top White House officials and Democratic Party leaders were in the plan.

The emails were sent in May 2023 when the full extent of Biden's health problems remained hidden from the public. Donald Trump had yet clinch the Republican nomination but was the frontrunner.

Polls at the time showed voters were desperate from a third option. An NBC News poll released in April found 60% of U.S. adults did not want Trump to run, and 70% did not want Biden to run.

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No Labels was exploring a 'unity ticket' with the goal of giving Americans that option.

Democratic operatives, obviously worried about situation, plotted to stop it. Many Democratic groups publicly slammed No Labels at the time, accusing the group of trying to ensure Trump's re-election.

But the court documents reveal an entire second level of tactics that go behind the norms of public editorials and on-the-record quotes.  

The proposal also included plans to 'bird dog' members of Congress who were part of the Problems Solvers Caucus, a group No Labels founded to find bipartisan solutions to the nation's problems.

'One important and effective method to uplift this battle against No Labels is to go directly to their minions in Congress,' the proposal read. 

'We will have activists calmly talk to them in the hallways while being recorded. We can then post and share the good videos. We can hit up the entire Problem Solvers Caucus in the House and their key allies in the Senate.'

'We will name and shame the members of the Problem Solvers Caucus who are affiliated with No Labels,' the memo vowed.

Ultimately the proposal was never adopted.  The Washington Post first reported some of the details of the campaign. DailyMail.com is the first to publish the entire memo outlining the harassment campaign. 

One of the men behind the emails Dmitri Mehlhorn, a co-founder of Investing in US, a political operation funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. 

Hoffman is the new George Soros of political funding and he was heavily invested in Biden having a second term.

He donated $2 million to help fund the campaign during the New Hampshire primary that urged Democratic voters to write Biden's name on New Hampshire primary ballots. 

Biden hadn't registered for the New Hampshire primary to comply with a new Democratic National Committee rule that made South Carolina the first state to hold a primary.

New Hampshire held its first-in-the-nation primary anyway, which Biden won as a write-in.

Hoffman is a massive anti-Trumper. He helped fund writer E. Jean Carroll's sexual assault suit against Trump and supported former Rep. Liz Cheney's 2022 re-election bid, which ultimately failed. 

He and Mehlhorn split in July 2024 after Mehlhorn had to apologize for comments he made after the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pa., which Mehlhorn suggested was staged.

Mehlhorn left Investing in US and joined the Lincoln Project. 

Biden, after his disastrous debate with Trump in July, ultimately exited the presidential race. Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee and lost to Trump in a landslide.