Trump uses $20M in Homeland Security funds for ‘clearly illegal’ ads featuring himself

Filed 1h ago · Via Arizona Mirror · The Buffoon Desk

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Maple Leaf Rag

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Trump administration moved $20 million into a Customs and Border Protection fund earmarked for 'commemorative events,' according to federal records cited by congressional Democrats, then awarded a same-size contract the next day to a Maryland marketing firm for a 'national media campaign.' Three resulting ads heavily feature Trump, including one nearly identical to a 2024 campaign spot, and use a song whose performer's attorneys have sent a cease-and-desist letter.

Senate Democrats Patty Murray and Christopher Murphy, along with House Democrats Rosa DeLauro and Henry Cuellar, say the fund jumped from $500,000 to $20 million on Sept. 19 based on federal apportionment tracking. Republican senators including John Thune, John Kennedy and John Cornyn have also objected to taxpayer funding for the spots, though a resolution condemning the ads was blocked by Sen. Cynthia Lummis.

The White House, in an unsigned statement, calls the ads educational public service announcements meant to remind Americans to 'love their country,' while Homeland Security has not denied the fund is paying for them. Ethics experts, including a former Biden-era OMB general counsel, say the ads cross from information into self-aggrandizing propaganda barred by federal law.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

When a fund for commemorative events swells from $500,000 to $20 million overnight and the only thing it ends up commemorating is the man who signs the checks, you don't need an ethics expert to smell it. Even John Kennedy and John Cornyn balked, and those two have swallowed a great deal without a glass of water. An ad telling you to love your country ought to be able to do it without the president's face filling the frame, and on somebody else's dime besides.

Source: Read the original at Arizona Mirror → Scored: Maple Leaf Rag · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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