Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is demanding a left-wing group stop airing a television ad “falsely claiming” the presumptive Republican presidential contender wants Pennsylvania voters not to vote by mail.
Mr. Trump’s team sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Pennsylvania Values super PAC Tuesday in response to an ad it started running this week that features video clips of Mr. Trump warning against early voting and insisting it was riddled with corruption.
“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,” Trump counsel David A. Warrington said in the letter. “Cease and desist broadcasting, or otherwise distributing via the internet or elsewhere, this false advertisement immediately and preserve all relevant documents in anticipation of likely litigation.”
The Washington Times reached out to Pennsylvania Values.
The group’s ad opens with a black and white photo of Mr. Trump and a clear message: “MAGA Patriots Listen To Our President!”
It then jumps to footage of Mr. Trump calling on supporters to recognize that “mail-in voting is totally corrupt” and urging them to “get that through your head!”
Mr. Trump rammed home that point during the 2020 election cycle in response to a flurry of action in states — including Pennsylvania — to expand mail-in voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Trump’s message dumbfounded some Republicans who questioned why Mr. Trump was throwing shade at a political tool that the party had relied on for years in states such as Arizona.
In 2024, Mr. Trump has changed his tune.
At a recent campaign rally in Phoenix, Mr. Trump urged voters to rally behind the GOP’s “Swamp the Vote” program that encourages Americans to request absentee or mail-in ballots and pledge to vote early in person.
In his cease-and-desist letter sent Tuesday, Mr. Warrington, Trump’s counsel, said the Pennsylvania Values ad “appears to violate the Ku Klux Klan Act,” which, he said was “enacted to prevent Democrats associated with the KKK from attempting to intimidate Republican voters.”
The Act, enacted in 1871, provided the federal government with the legal authority to combat individuals who violated the constitutional rights of American citizens.
Democrat-aligned groups have also turned to the law in recent years.
The NAACP filed a federal lawsuit in 2021 against Mr. Trump and his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, arguing they violated the act after trying to stop the certification of the 2020 election results on Jan. 6.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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