Vetting the Presidential Debate Commission

FPI / October 21, 2020

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted on Oct. 8: "The Commission on Presidential Debates is little more than a Commission to elect @JoeBiden!"

Why would McEnany call out a commission which is presumably bipartisan, with a registered Republican, Frank Fahrenkopf, as its chairman? Fahrenkopf also serves on the board of the International Republican Institute. So what's the problem?

As Zero Hedge noted, the reasons to doubt the commission's objectivity are many and in plain sight:

• Chris Wallace, moderator of the first presidential debate, was widely panned for his non-centrist bias during the chaotic to and fro. Having expressly stated before the event that he wouldn't operate as a fact-checker, that's all he did for at least the first hour of the debate; interrupting President Donald Trump but not Joe Biden at nearly every turn, blocking the incumbent before he could correct mischaracterizations and flat-out lies from Biden, to full-throated arguments with the president despite lobbing softball questions — or no questions at all — to the former vice president, Wallace's presentation was appalling.

• Susan Page, moderator of the vice-presidential debate, was far better than Wallace but, aside from the fact she is Nancy Pelosi's biographer, her bias was exposed numerous times including highlighting the horrid state of the economy without mentioning that the economy was historically booming before COVID-lockdowns were enforced, cutting off VP Pence numerous times and allowing Senator Harris to escape answering key questions (will you pack the courts?).

• Steve Scully, the C-SPAN political editor who was supposed to be moderator for the second presidential debate, had previously interned for Joe Biden and tweeted a "Never-Trump" article in 2016 titled "No, Not Trump, Not Ever". Scully was caught red-handed in an accidental public tweet to none other than disgruntled former White House Comms Director Anthony Scaramucci on "responding to Trump." Scully first claimed his Twitter account had been hacked, then admitted he fabricated the hacking claim. He was suspended by C-SPAN.

• A hardcore leftist Democrat, NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker, was chosen to moderate the final debate, set for Thursday. Welker’s parents have given thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates, including Biden and Hillary Clinton. In 2012, Welker and her family celebrated Christmas at the White House with the Obamas. “Anyone who’s ever dealt with Welker knows she’s an activist, not a reporter. The White House press team views her the same way they would AOC or Pelosi if they walked in the office,” a senior White House official said.

Meanwhile, Revolver.news noted of Fahrenkopf: "At first glance, it might appear as though Fahrenkopf’s Republican Party membership, combined with his board membership at the International Republican Institute, lends him, and by extension the Debate Commission, some semblance of balance."

But nothing could be further from the truth.

Fahrenkopf is both a co-founder and current board member of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a top “Color Revolution” propaganda outfit which is closely tied to George Soros and the bogus Steele dossier, the report said. The IRI also was run for 25 years by never-Trump neocon John McCain.

The IRI board also includes David Kramer, the aide to McCain who "is most notorious for spreading the completely discredited Steele dossier that served as the basis for the Russia hoax," the Revolver report noted.

Kramer testified in a libel case that he spread the unsubstantiated anti-Trump material all over Washington during the presidential transition. He leaked dossier material to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt, CNN’s Carl Bernstein, National Public Radio, McClatchy news service and others, he said.

IRI’s official stated position on the George Floyd issue "is directly in keeping with the rhetorical narratives fueling the Antifa and BLM fires that are part and parcel of the Color Revolution against Trump," the Revolver report noted.

"The notion that Fahrenkopf’s status as a registered Republican provides any kind balance when it comes to the presidential debates is laughable and absurd. Patriotic Americans have caught on to the fact that there is something deeply unfair about the presidential debates."

Free Press International