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PSA: Trump Continues To Commit Crimes

While the president is unlikely to face any consequences for his patently illegal, taxpayer-funded ads, it’s essential to remember he should.

Donald Trump strides down a hallway in “Final Battle,” a campaign ad paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Like many Americans, I was watching college gladiatorial sports on Saturday when a new Donald Trump campaign ad interrupted my nachos and circus. In the ad, Trump promises to rid the country of communists and Marxists—which made me glare at my TV long enough to mumble, “I’m not going anywhere, you piece of shit”—followed by a curious tagline: “Paid for by the U.S. government.”

The line immediately activated my lawyer brain. Federal law prohibits taxpayer dollars from being used for campaign ads and other forms of propaganda. Trump’s ad was a clear violation of this restriction. Moreover, the ad violates the Hatch Act, which bars federal officials from making campaign statements in their official capacity. Nothing about these ads (Trump apparently made three different ones with our tax dollars) is remotely legal, or OK.

And yet, before the game resumed, I knew how the rest of the story would play out. Democrats would demand an “investigation” into this facially obvious violation. Republicans would shrug and either say they hadn’t seen it or that it was no big deal. The Trump administration would offer some limp legal defense that amounted to “but a Black president existed.” Nothing would happen. All the while, the stories highlighting the ad’s illegality would draw more attention to the state propaganda beamed into our eyeballs.

It’s played out pretty much as I anticipated. Popular ethicists like Richard Painter and Norm Eisen have excoriated the administration. Eisen told The New York Times: “The president and his administration have gone from breaking the law to trampling it.” Senator Elizabeth Warren told The Hill: “There should be a full investigation because on its face it appears to be a violation of federal law.” Even the Republican Senate majority leader John Thune pushed back a little, though he had to be careful to still lick Trump’s boot while lightly admonishing his dear leader. Thune said:........

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