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A few weeks ago, Politicos Florida Playbook ran a story revealing what hundreds of people, groups, and journalists in the state were asking for: texts, emails, calendars, letters, and receipts to or from Floridas governor, presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.

In Politicos telling, many of the requesters were affiliated with the Democratic Party, making demands under the states open-records law to get damning material against political enemies. And, in DeSantis case, Floridas public records certainly marked the best starting point to look for muck. The list that Politico received of requesters targeting DeSantis in his home state was 222 pages long.

Unsurprisingly, mostly Democratic-aligned groups asked for dirt on DeSantis and his inner circle, Politico wrote. Oddly, no one tied to Trump or other 2024 candidates asked for such records, though its possible that GOP campaigns used an untraceable proxy to avoid angering a future Republican president.

Why didnt the Trump campaign file such requests? Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, bluntly told Politico: We have information that no opposition researcher can ever find.

Opposition research oppo in the vernacular of politicians is a basic building block in every political campaign. Oppo is the ammunition behind every negative campaign ad; every gut punch in a debate. The higher the stakes, the deeper the research. And many more players are in the opposition-research game now, following the Supreme Courts 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

The Courts 5-to-4 decision in Citizens United opened the door to unlimited election spending by so-called independent political action committees, aka Super PACs. Super PACs spend big on negative ads, and oppo is their ammo. According to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks the flow of money in politics, spending in the 2020 presidential and congressional races totaled $14.4 billion, more than double the total cost of the record-breaking 2016 presidential election cycle. That huge influx of money led to more negative campaign advertisements across all media, which in turn juiced the need for more opposition research. (Full disclosure: I am a longtime board member of OpenSecrets).

Not surprisingly, those conducting opposition research turn early and often to the Freedom of Information Act. So we decided to dig into PoliScio Analytics competitive-intelligence database FOIAengine, which tracks FOIA requests in as close to real-time as their availability allows, to see what the players are up to.

With so many candidates vying for the Republican nomination, the Republican National Committee is staying on the sidelines, leaving opposition research to the affiliated PACs and super PACs of the various candidates. Next week, well take a closer look at some of the thousands of FOIA requests from Republican proxies acting on behalf of, or in synch with, the Republican candidates.

With the Democrats, its the GOP story in reverse. The Democrats know who their probable standard bearers will be. But, with more than a dozen declared Republican candidates and an even greater number of undeclared long shots, Democratic oppo researchers must throw a dragnet, systematically spreading an array of FOIA requests across a broad swath of agencies and departments.

President Bidens main super PAC, Future Forward, which spent more than $130 million in 2020, doesnt show up as a requester in FOIAengine at all. Instead, the Democratic National Committee appears to be taking the oppo-research lead. According to FOIAengine, the DNC has filed more than 300 recent FOIA requests with federal agencies, covering the wide range of candidates who could end up as the eventual presidential or vice presidential nominee on the Republican presidential ticket.

FOIA requests to the federal government can be an important early warning of bad publicity, litigation to come, or uncertainties that must be hedged or gamed out. In this case, the DNCs FOIA requests appear to reflect a calculus that even if the race for the top of the ticket is settled early, the vice-presidential spot will end up being a wild card. Hence, the DNC must place a lot of early bets on the table.

Over the past year or so, the Democrats have filed extensive FOIA requests with various federal agencies seeking detailed information on at least 19 present or former Republican officeholders. The list includes some who have stated flatly that theyre not running for president, but who could end up as a running mate. There are some dark horses: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Pompeo, Ben Carson, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) are among the DNCs targets. And a few surprises: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) are on the DNCs list; Vivek Ramaswamy isnt yet.

Following are highlights from the DNCs opposition-research FOIA requests thus far:

To see all the DNC opposition-research requests, log in or sign up to become a FOIAengine beta user.

Next: Thousands of opposition-research requests from Republican-affiliated PACs.

John A. Jenkins, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington journalist and publisher whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and elsewhere. He is a four-time recipient of the American Bar Associations Gavel Award Certificate of Merit for his legal reporting and analysis. His most recent book is The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist. Jenkins founded Law Street Media in 2013. Prior to that, he was President of CQ Press, the textbook and reference publishing enterprise of Congressional Quarterly. FOIAengine is a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a new venture specializing in U.S. political and governmental research, co-founded by Jenkins and Washington lawyer Randy Miller. Learn more about FOIAengine here. To review FOIA requests mentioned in this article, subscribe to FOIAengine.

Write to John A. Jenkins at JAJ@PoliScio.com.

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The DNC Goes Fishing What Will it Catch? - Law Street Media