Washington, D.C.: Judge AliKhan Blocks Trump Administration From Airing $20 Million in Taxpayer Funded TV Ads

A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from airing television advertisements praising President Donald Trump that were paid for with 20 million dollars in taxpayer money. US District Judge Loren AliKhan ruled for the Democratic National Committee in its lawsuit over the ads, in the case known as DNC v. Trump, and imposed a fresh block that expands a temporary ban already in place, Bloomberg Law reported.

AliKhan ordered US officials to stop developing and airing the ads, Bloomberg Law reported. The Daily Letter reported that the order stayed the 20 million dollar budget decision that paid for five pro-Trump television ads and barred the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Homeland Security from distributing them. The judge found that officials likely used public dollars to unlawfully finance a national media campaign, The Daily Letter reported. Courts reporter Scott MacFarlane reported a second finding from the judge: the DNC "has established a likelihood of irreparable harm absent relief."

Six days before the midterms

The ruling landed on October 28, six days before the November 3 midterm elections. Those elections will decide which party controls the House of Representatives and the Senate for the rest of Trump's term. Trump himself is not on the ballot, but the ads praise him by name, and they were set to run in the final stretch of the campaign with government money behind them.

The Democratic National Committee argued in its lawsuit that the advertisements disadvantaged Democratic candidates and broke federal spending rules. Federal law bars the use of money appropriated by Congress for publicity or propaganda, and the committee said a national television campaign promoting the president crossed that line.

Two lawsuits over the same ads

The DNC filed its case in Washington on October 7. A second case, brought in New York by the watchdog group Common Cause and the union SEIU Local 32BJ, reached a judge first. US District Judge Jennifer Rochon issued a temporary restraining order in that case on October 12. Bloomberg Law reported that a federal judge in New York has barred officials from taking steps to air the ads or spending more public money on them through November 15, a date that falls after the November 3 elections.

Wednesday's order in Washington is not a final ruling on whether the ads broke the law. It keeps the ads off the air while the case goes forward, and it rests on the judge's assessment that the committee is likely to succeed and likely to be harmed if the spending continued in the meantime.

Reaction

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin welcomed the order in a statement issued on Wednesday. "The Court just delivered a victory for the rule of law and for American taxpayers," Martin said. "Trump and his administration can no longer misuse Americans' hard-earned dollars to run political ads while working families can't even afford to pay for their gas and groceries."

No public response from the administration appeared in the reports available on Wednesday afternoon.