As multiple Democrats and media outlets raise questions regarding potential Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s adoption of two Haitian children, one person familiar with this line of attack is speaking out.
Meghan McCain, co-host of “The View” and daughter of late-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), took to Twitter Saturday morning to warn against using the adopted children of a possible Supreme Court nominee against her.
“President Bush politicized adoption and my little sister – my family and America never forgot it (I never forgave). It is historically noted as a dark mark on American political history,” McCain tweeted. “Do not do to Amy Coney Barretts [sic] family what was done to mine, democrats. It won’t end well.”
President Bush politicized adoption and my little sister – my family and America never forgot it (I never forgave). It is historically noted as a dark mark on American political history.
Do not do to Amy Coney Barretts family what was done to mine, democrats. It won’t end well.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) September 26, 2020
In 2000, after George W. Bush began trailing in the primary to Sen. McCain, the Bush campaign and its supporters started a rumor that his opponent had fathered a black child out of wedlock. The truth was simple and easy to verify: McCain’s wife Cindy visited Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1991 with the non-profit organization she founded, the American Voluntary Medical Team. While at the orphanage founded by Mother Teresa, Cindy found two infant girls who needed medical treatment. She adopted one of the girls and helped facilitate the adoption of the other to a family friend. She named her new adopted daughter Bridget. John McCain was happy to adopt a new baby girl.
Absolutely nothing untoward happened, yet the whisper campaign helped sink McCain’s 2000 run for president. He eventually buried the hatchet with President Bush and even stumped for him in 2004.
Twenty years after one of the ugliest smear campaigns in modern presidential history, Democrats are using foreign adoption against President Donald Trump’s reported Supreme Court pick, Judge Barrett, who adopted two Haitian Children.
The Daily Wire’s Hank Berrien reported:
Dana Houle, who served as Chief of Staff for Democratic New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes and campaign manager for Hodes and for Democratic Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, according to Boston Review, tweeted, “I would love to know which adoption agency Amy Coney Barrett & her husband used to adopt the two children they brought here from Haiti.”
“So, here’s a Q: does the press even investigate details of Barrett’s adoptions from Haiti? Some adoptions from Haiti were legit,” Houle continued. “Many were sketchy as hell. And if press learned they were unethical & maybe illegal adoptions, would they report it? Or not bc it involves her children. Would it matter if her kids were scooped up by ultra-religious Americans, or Americans weren’t scrupulous intermediaries & the kids were taken when there was family in Haiti? I dunno. I think it does, but maybe it doesn’t, or shouldn’t.”
He added, “I hope the adoptions were fully legit & ethical. I hope if press investigates that’s whay [sic] find. But if the adoptions were sketchy, reporting it would really screw w the lives of her 2 adopted kids (& maybe the 5 bio kids too).”
Another Democrat, NextGen America managing director John Lee Brougher, demanded more information “about the circumstances of how Amy Coney Barrett came to adopt her children, and the treatment of them since,” adding that “Transracial adoption is fraught with trauma and potential for harm.” Brougher has since protected his tweets.