US judge blocks Trump admin from using taxpayer money for political ads

A US judge on Sunday blocked the Trump administration from using taxpayer money to pay for political advertisements, after publicly funded television ads glorifying US President Donald Trump began airing in late September and sparked a bipartisan backlash.

Manhattan-based US District Judge Jennifer Rochon temporarily barred the advertisements after plaintiffs including watchdog group Common Cause brought a lawsuit alleging the ads were political propaganda designed to help Republican candidates in the November 3 midterm elections, not public service announcements.

The Trump administration was already planning to stop running the ads before Rochon's order, according to a separate statement filed with the court on Saturday.

The decision caps days of controversy over the taxpayer-funded advertisements, which were aired in the final weeks before the midterm elections.

“We won’t stop until this administration is held fully accountable, and no president from any party can waste and abuse taxpayer funds for propaganda ever again," said Common Cause President and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón.

Trump on Monday said he considered the ads to be a "positive promotion for our great U.S.A." but that they would no longer be funded by taxpayers, and the White House said this week that the president's political action committee, MAGA PAC, would fund the ads going forward.

The White House said Trump's political action committee will ​not reimburse taxpayers for the ads that have already run. The ads end with a disclaimer saying they were paid ​for by the US government. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the judge's order.

The plaintiffs, which also included a public employee union and a candidate for Alabama state representative, had asked Rochon to temporarily block the ads by Friday so that they could not air during weekend programming such as football games and Saturday Night Live.

Democratic Party officials also challenged the ads in a separate suit brought in federal court in Washington.

- Luc Cohen; Additional reporting by Courtney Rozen in Washington; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Stephen Coates/Reuters