{"id":2362810,"date":"2024-11-01T13:39:01","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T17:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fec-complaint-wapos-paid-ads-violate-campaign-finance-rules\/"},"modified":"2024-11-01T13:41:56","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T17:41:56","slug":"fec-complaint-wapos-paid-ads-violate-campaign-finance-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fec-complaint-wapos-paid-ads-violate-campaign-finance-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"FEC Complaint: WaPo&#8217;s Paid Ads Violate Campaign Finance Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffec-complaint-wapos-paid-ads-violate-campaign-finance-rules%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2362810&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The Trump campaign has filed a complaint with\u2064 the \u2063Federal Election Commission (FEC)\u200b against The Washington Post, alleging that the newspaper \u2064is engaging in illegal electioneering to support Vice President \u2064Kamala Harris.\u200d The complaint was lodged by the Dhillon Law\u2064 Group \u200don behalf of\u200b former President Donald\u2063 Trump and Senator \u200dJ.D. Vance. It claims that The Washington Post&#8217;s \u200dactions, which include boosting articles \u2063critical of Trump and \u200dhighlighting Harris-related content, amount to &#8220;dark \u2062money corporate campaign&#8221; tactics.\u2062 The complaint references\u200c a report from Semafor detailing how the Post \u2064has invested\u2063 significantly in advertising to promote stories\u2063 beneficial to Harris while undermining Trump. This advertising strategy is claimed to meet the \u200ddefinition of &#8220;in-kind \u200ccorporate contributions&#8221; \u2064supporting Harris&#8217;s presidential campaign. Additionally, a\u2062 nonprofit\u200c group has also lodged a similar complaint, criticizing\u200c the timing and\u200d nature \u200dof the\u200d Post&#8217;s spending ahead of the election.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Trump campaign filed a <a href=\"https:\/\/prod-static.gop.com\/media\/documents\/DJTFP_Complaint_10-31-24_WaPo_Corporate_Contribution_1730472578.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">complaint<\/a> against The Washington Post with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in response to advertising efforts Republicans argue amount to illegal electioneering.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, the Dhillon Law Group filed a complaint on behalf of former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, that claims the Post is engaged in &ldquo;a <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">dark money corporate campaign&#038;rdquo<\/a>; to boost Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;<em>The Washington Post<\/em> recently announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate, a decision <em>the<\/em> <em>Post&rsquo;s <\/em>owner defended on the basis that &lsquo;Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,&rsquo;&rdquo; the complaint reads. &ldquo;Yet, on October 30, 2024, the news website <em>Semafor<\/em> published a report titled &lsquo;Washington Post pays to boost stories critical of Trump as subscribers flee.&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Semafor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.semafor.com\/article\/10\/30\/2024\/washington-post-pays-to-boost-stories-critical-of-trump-as-subscribers-flee\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">article<\/a> published Wednesday chronicled the paper&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/report-navy-pay-delays-causing-some-sailors-to-rely-on-loans\/\" title=\"Report: Navy Pay Delays Causing Some Sailors to Rely on Loans\">desperate efforts<\/a> to save readership after losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers in the aftermath of an announcement that the editorial board would not endorse Harris.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Washington Post pays to boost stories critical of Trump as subscribers flee,&rdquo; the headline read. <\/p>\n<p>Semafor reported that eight days before Election Day, &ldquo;On Monday, the paper aggressively ramped up its paid <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/walsh-americans-have-already-been-wildly-misled-about-law-enforcement-shootings-this-study-displays-how-effective-the-propaganda-provides-been\/\" title=\"WALSH: Americans HAVE ALREADY BEEN Wildly Misled About Law enforcement Shootings. This Study Displays How Effective The Propaganda Provides Been.\">advertising campaign<\/a>, boosting dozens of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/major-kyrsten-sinema-supporter-demands-she-help-kill-the-filibuster\/\" title=\"Major Kyrsten Sinema Supporter Demands She Help Kill The Filibuster\">articles related<\/a> to the election. While the articles about Vice President Kamala Harris were relatively neutral in tone and focused on her innovative digital strategy, her policy proposals, and her chances of winning next week, the articles that the Post paid to highlight about Trump told a different story.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Post &ldquo;boosted multiple critical articles, including about Trump&rsquo;s campaign rhetoric, his misstatements, his allies&rsquo; attempts to &lsquo;energize him as he struggles to adapt to Harris,&rsquo; how his campaign damaged Springfield, Ohio, his fixation on the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, how crowds leave his rallies early, and his questioning of the results of the 2020 election, among other stories.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The advertising campaign, according to the Trump campaign complaint filed with the FEC, meets the legal qualifications of &ldquo;in-kind corporate contributions&rdquo; to Harris for president.<\/p>\n<p>The latest push to maintain subscribers was also the subject of another FEC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanrights.org\/cases\/center-for-american-rights-files-fec-complaint-against-washington-post-for-paid-ads-elevating-the-harris-campaign\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">complaint<\/a>, filed by the Chicago nonprofit Center for American Rights on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re days from an election, and the Washington Post is pouring cash into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/report-human-traffickers-using-facebook-to-advertise-us-mexico-border-services\/\" title=\"Report: Human Traffickers Using Facebook To Advertise US-Mexico Border Services\">social media advertising<\/a> that exclusively helps one candidate for president and denigrates another,&rdquo; the group&rsquo;s president said in a press release. &ldquo;That sort of last-minute spending is not protected by the FEC&rsquo;s press exemption; the Post needs to come clean and comply with the law.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In his interview with Joe Rogan, released Thursday afternoon, Vance <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/11\/01\/vance-says-the-problem-with-the-washington-post-lies-in-its-journalism-not-with-the-editorials\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spoke<\/a> about the turmoil overwhelming The Washington Post after the paper chose not to endorse a candidate for president this year.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The Washington Post might as well be a propaganda outlet of the Democratic Party,&rdquo; Vance said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care, frankly, whether the editorial page endorses Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. I care about whether the journalists are lying about Donald Trump or lying about Kamala Harris.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;And frankly,&rdquo; Vance added, &ldquo;they&rsquo;re lying a lot in the negative direction about my running mate, and they&rsquo;re lying a lot in the positive direction about Kamala Harris.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<div lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>JD Vance: &ldquo;The Washington Post might as well be a propaganda outlet of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n<p>If you look from the Hunter Biden laptop to any number of stories where they just tow the Left-wing line almost instinctively. The problem was with the journalism at the Washington Post.&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pjHhiZz9Ed\">pic.twitter.com\/pjHhiZz9Ed<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&mdash; ALEX (@ajtourville) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ajtourville\/status\/1852085495540703278?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 31, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<hr>\n<p>      Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan&#8217;s email newsletter <a href=\"https:\/\/socialjusticeredux.substack.com\/about\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump campaign lodged a complaint with the FEC against The Washington Post for alleged illegal electioneering<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":2362811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Trump-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[33926,33739,35942,44169,7115],"class_list":["post-2362810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-campaign-finance","tag-election-law","tag-fec-complaint","tag-paid-ads","tag-wapo"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Trump-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2362810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2362811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2362810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2362810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2362810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}