A federal judge pointed to President Donald Trump’s personal involvement in taxpayer-funded TV ads that “likely” violated the law by airing ahead of the midterms, noting his administration did not contest that the ads were “purely partisan.”
After issuing a restraining order to shut down the ads on Sunday, U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon explained her reasoning in an opinion filed Monday in Manhattan federal court.
The government paid for the ads with Department of Homeland Security money that Congress set aside for border security, even though the ads praise the president and cast his perceived adversaries in sharply negative terms, Rochon wrote.
Government lawyers did not try to defend the ads as legal, Rochon noted. In a court filing Saturday, they argued instead that the case was moot, meaning no longer a live dispute, because the ad buys would end Sunday. They also argued the plaintiffs had no legal right to sue.
A provision of federal spending law known as Section 718 bars agencies from using taxpayer money “for publicity or propaganda purposes” that Congress has not approved, Rochon explained.
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