President Trump’s reelection campaign accused the liberal mayor of Minneapolis on Monday of trying to shut down his planned Thursday rally via an extortionate security bill.
The campaign said Mayor Jacob Frey, whom it dubbed a “radical leftist,” had presented the Target Center with a “phony and outlandish bill for security” for the planned Keep America Great rally.
According to the Trump team’s statement, “the ridiculous sum of $530,000 is more than 26 times the estimated security costs for a 2009 Target Center health care rally held by President Barack Obama.”
The Target Center, the home of the NBA’s Timberwolves, then attempted to pass that bill along to the Trump campaign “under threat of withholding the use of the arena,” the Trump statement said.
The law firm Jones Day wrote to the Target Center’s management firm that “this last-minute squeeze seems to be nothing but a pretextual political effort with serious First Amendment ramifications.”
Brad Parscale, the reelection campaign’s manager, directly blamed Mr. Frey, something the law firm had only hinted it.
“This is an outrageous abuse of power by a liberal mayor trying to deny the rights of his own city’s residents just because he hates the President,” Mr. Parscale said. “People want to hear from their President, and no mayor looking to beef up his resume for a run for higher office should stand in the way.”
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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