Trump's taxpayer-funded illegal TV ads
Trump's taxpayer-funded illegal TV ads
- The Trump regime, in flagrant violation of multiple laws, is running campaign ads on major television networks — including during nationally televised football games — paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Public Citizen has formally filed a complaint of potential Hatch Act violations, called for the Federal Communications Commission to step in, and launched an investigation under the Freedom of Information Act to ascertain where exactly the money for these ads came from.
We are also calling on major television networks to stop airing Trump’s illegal, taxpayer-funded political propaganda.
Here’s the story:- These ads do not refer to any specific governmental program and do not serve the purpose of informing the public about any specific governmental program — which could be within the law. Instead, the ads are clearly designed to glorify Donald Trump, and, by association, to benefit his political party in the upcoming midterm elections — which is patently illegal.
- Trump is using taxpayer dollars — $20 million worth, reportedly, which had been authorized by Congress for other purposes — to pay for these ads in an obvious and, we believe, illegal scheme to help Republicans maintain control of Congress.
- Even though Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations. Even though Trump has exploited the presidency to corruptly enrich himself and members of his family to the tune of billions of dollars. In other words, if Trump feels compelled to produce self-aggrandizing political propaganda, he has plenty of money to pay for it himself.
- Right after these ads began airing, Public Citizen launched an investigation under the Freedom of Information Act to ascertain where exactly the money for them came from.
- The administration subsequently revealed that Donald Trump personally directed Russell Vought (an architect of the infamous Project 2025 manifesto and one of Trump’s most servile henchmen) to use taxpayer dollars to pay for the ads. Vought then took the money out of the massive budget that Trump and MAGA Republicans engineered for the Department of Homeland Security. As if DHS and its out-of-control offspring ICE weren’t doing enough damage already!
- Federal law prohibits government funds from being used for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” And a law called the Hatch Act prohibits most government employees — including at least some of the people who would have been involved in these ads — from using their positions for partisan political purposes.
- We have filed complaints with the appropriate offices to demand action under the Hatch Act against these unlawful ads. We also filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, calling on it to direct broadcasters not to air the ads, which violate their licences. And we have called on the broadcasters themselves to refuse to air these impermissible ads.
- Rep. Jamie Raskin (Maryland) said this about one of the ads: “This may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes. It is a Hatch Act violation for any government employees who worked on it or used government resources to make it. It is blatantly unethical under numerous federal ethics provisions proscribing the use of government resources for political campaigns.”
- And Richard Painter — an ethics lawyer who served under George W. Bush (a Republican, you may recall) — noted that this “is increasingly looking like what authoritarian governments do to promote their leaders.”
Broadcasters have a duty NOT to air ads that violate federal law.
Thanks for taking action.
For democracy,
- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
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