Trump campaign hits progressive Pennsylvania PAC with cease-and-desist over deceptive ads on mail-in votes
The Trump campaign is putting a progressive Super PAC on notice for “false” advertisements that could give Pennsylvania voters the impression the former president’s team was telling them not to vote by mail.
On Tuesday, the Trump campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Pennsylvania Values PAC, demanding that it preserve key documents and alerting them to potential future legal action.
“We are aware of your advertisement falsely claiming that President Trump has asked Pennsylvania voters not to vote by mail,” the former president’s campaign legal counsel David Warrington wrote in the letter Tuesday.
“This advertisement may constitute both a criminal and civil conspiracy to injure the rights of President Trump’s supporters to cast their ballots in Pennsylvania.”
In a recent spot cut by the PAC, the group stressed that “MAGA patriots listen to our president” and played Trump’s past remarks claiming that “mail-in voting is totally corrupt.”
“Stand with President Trump against mail-in voting,” the ad closed, with fine print noting that it was paid for by the Pennsylvania PAC and not authorized by any candidate.
Trump, 78, publicly railed against the proliferation of mail-in voting during the 2020 election cycle, which took place under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since then, he has softened his tone a touch.
While still blasting it as “treacherous,” at a recent rally, Trump stressed that “we have to win the election in order to change it.”
“ABSENTEE VOTING, EARLY VOTING, AND ELECTION DAY VOTING ARE ALL GOOD OPTIONS. REPUBLICANS MUST MAKE A PLAN, REGISTER, AND VOTE!” Trump wrote in an April Truth Social post.
Similarly, the Republican National Committee, which has joined forces with his campaign, has worked to boost mail-in voters for its candidates.
Pennsylvania is widely regarded as one of the top seven battleground states in the presidential cycle that could determine the ultimate victor. It has 19 Electoral College votes, down one from 2020.
In the cease-and-desist letter, Warrington cited multiple federal laws he believes the Pennsylvania Values PAC may have flouted such as the Klux Klan Act, which allows civil action against those who plot “to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote.”
Warrington also recounted prior cases in which the Justice Department successfully prosecuted individuals for spewing false information intended to give voters false information about the voting process.
“Legal proceedings, including litigation, are actively contemplated this matter,” he warned, demanding it retain documents and emails pertaining to the “inception, creation, production, and dissemination of your advertisement.”
A Trump campaign press release further revealed that it “will seek a criminal investigation of, Pennsylvania Values PAC for airing a false television ad.”
“Biden and his allies will stop at nothing to interfere with this election because Crooked Joe is losing nationally and in battleground states like Pennsylvania,” Brian Hughes, senior adviser to the Trump campaign said in a statement.
“Pennsylvania Values PAC is peddling lies to prevent voters exercising their right to vote. President Trump has been clear that his supporters should use all legal methods to cast a ballot this election.”
Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 but lost it in 2020.
Earlier this year, New Hampshire’s Republican attorney general targetted two Texas-based firms his office alleged were tied to robocalls that deployed artificial intelligence to imitate President Biden’s voice in a bid to discourage voters.
Eventually, a Democratic political consultant who was the alleged mastermind of the faux call was slapped with 13 counts of voter suppression, and 13 counts of impersonating a candidate as well as a proposed $6 million fine, according to an announcement in May.
The Post attempted to reach a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Values PAC.
