Fresh off his humiliating defeat in Monday night’s debate, Donald Trump may be about to face another humbling moment. The city of Phoenix wants a Trump campaign ad yanked off the air for including footage of uniformed police officers without their consent and in violation of both federal and state law.
On September 20, Trump rolled out what has been described as his first positive ad of the campaign–a positive piece called “Movement.” Watch it here.
Roughly 22 seconds into the ad, Trump is shown shaking hands with several police officers. According to The Arizona Republic, the footage appears to have been taken when he arrived in Phoenix for his big immigration speech on June 18.
That didn’t sit well with Phoenix city attorney Brad Holm. With the full support of Mayor Phil Gordon, Holm fired off a burning cease-and-desist letter to the Trump campaign on Thursday. Read it here. It reminds Trump that the officers were on duty at the time, and the fact they were in uniform “unmistakably and wrongfully suggests” that they and the city supported Trump’s campaign. On the contrary, Holm wrote, the city “does not approve–and will not approve” the use of on-duty police officers’ likenesses “in any political advertisement for any candidate.”
Phoenix, like most cities, does not allow city employees to endorse a candidate while they are on duty, in uniform, or on city property. The only time city employees can appear in campaign videos while in uniform is when they are off duty–and only then with permission. According to Republic columnist EJ Montini, this policy is in place so the city can comply with longstanding federal law that forbids many local employees from engaging in partisan activity while on duty.
Holm also reminded Trump that the officers’ uniforms, including the badges, are “protected intellectual property” of the city of Phoenix under the federal Copyright Act, as well as state law. Longstanding city policy does not allow “any person, entity, or political campaign” to use city intellectual property “for any private purpose such as a campaign ad.”
For these reasons, Holm demanded that the Trump campaign take down all images of Phoenix’ intellectual property–including police uniforms and on-duty officers. If Trump doesn’t do so, Holm warns that he is authorized to “pursue all legal remedies” to make him do so–up to and including a lawsuit. As I write this on Friday night, no one from the Trump campaign has responded. Not even Trump himself. He has the time to go on an unhinged rant against Alicia Machado, but can’t respond to a warning from a city attorney that his ad is potentially illegal?
Phoenix police union president Ken Crane thinks his bosses are doing this “to cover themselves” and send a message to any other campaign who thinks it’s a good idea to let city employees appear in campaign ads on city time. He believes that Holm would do the same thing if Hillary Clinton pulled a similar stunt.
From where I’m sitting, the Trump campaign either has some REALLY bad lawyers, or campaign honchos Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway are even more incompetent than we thought. After all, it’s well established that local employees must not have the appearance of partisanship. It seems hard to believe that someone in Trump Tower didn’t see the raw footage and ask, “Hey, is this even legal?” Montini apparently wonders the same thing; he thinks this move is “felony stupid.”
But then again, Trump has demonstrated time and again that such little things as intellectual property are just things in his way.
(featured image courtesy Marc Nozell, available under a Creative Commons-BY license)
