Groundswell is a coalition of prominent American conservative activists, including Virginia Thomas, who began meeting in 2013 in order to fight progressivism in the United States and the Republican Party (GOP) establishment.[1][2][3] Groundswell went on to be influential in the White House of former president Donald Trump, conducting an effort to rid the White House and other government agencies of so-called "deep state" opponents of Trump.[4][5][3]

According to leaked documents in 2013, the group had started staging "a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation",[1] by such goals as undermining the power of former GOP strategist and Fox News analyst Karl Rove,[6] along with the 2012 Benghazi attack and the Operation Fast and Furious's gun-running issue,[7] repealing the Affordable Care Act, working behind the scenes to enact voter ID laws, and blocking Obama administration nominees.[1]

In 2021, Barbara Ledeen was named as a member of Groundswell in connection with her involvement in an undercover campaign by Project Veritas to discredit H. R. McMaster when he served as Trump's national security adviser in 2017 and 2018. Ledeen, longtime staffer for Senator Chuck Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee and wife of neoconservative foreign policy analyst Michael Ledeen, said she passed on information about McMaster's social calendar to Project Veritas which then used the information to plan an operation to secretly record McMaster making comments that would cause him to resign or be fired. Ledeen admitted passing on the information but said "I am not part of a plot."[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Corn, David (July 25, 2013). "Inside Groundswell: Read the Memos of the New Right-Wing Strategy Group Planning a "30 Front War"". Mother Jones.
  2. ↑ Fang, Lee; Surgey, Nick (June 4, 2019). "Ginni Thomas Plans New Conservative Supergroup to "Protect President Trump"". The Intercept. First Look Institute. Retrieved July 6, 2021. Ginni Thomas has been involved in an ad-hoc coalition known as 'Groundswell,' touted as a plan to wage a '30-front war' on left-wing activists and the GOP establishment.
  3. 1 2 Haberman, Maggie (May 3, 2021). "Among Those Pressing Trump to Weed Out Disloyalty: Clarence Thomas's Wife". The New York Times. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
  4. 1 2 Goldman, Adam; Mazzetti, Mark (May 13, 2021). "Activists and Ex-Spy Said to Have Plotted to Discredit Trump 'Enemies' in Government". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
  5. ↑ Swan, Jonathan (23 February 2020). "Exclusive: Trump's "Deep State" hit list". Axios.
  6. ↑ Corn, David (July 25, 2013). "Groundswell's Secret Crusade to Crush Karl Rove". Mother Jones.
  7. ↑ "Facing a 'Groundswell'". The Rachel Maddow Show. MSNBC. July 25, 2013.

Further reading

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