Court shock to Trump, ban on advertisements made with government money

District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon on Sunday ordered the cancellation of TV ads made with millions of taxpayer dollars to promote the president’s political message.

Rochon issued a temporary restraining order. In this, the Trump administration was instructed to cancel all the remaining advertisements.

According to the Axios report, the order said that the administration should immediately stop the advertisements in which President Trump is visible.

This decision comes a few weeks before the midterm elections to be held in November. In the US, several lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s use of taxpayers’ money are pending in the court.

This decision has come on the petition of Washington watch dog ‘Common Cause’ and non-profit organization ‘Democracy Forward’ and others. A similar lawsuit has been filed by the Democratic National Committee in the federal court in Washington.

After the New York court’s decision, the Trump administration said that the spirit of public service is reflected in these advertisements. Their purpose is to provide information about welfare schemes.

Past Republican and Democratic administrations have also used advertisements funded by taxpayer money to promote government policies.

However, after the lawsuit was filed, Trump promised to bear the expenses of the advertisements himself. The White House said there is no plan to return the millions of dollars spent on advertising to the government.

The petition filed in a New York court alleged that the Trump administration violated campaign rules by spending more than was approved by Congress. Democracy Forward has expressed happiness over the decision.

It is reported that the Department of Homeland Security had allocated $20 million of taxpayers’ money for these advertisements.

The money used for the ads came from a $175 million package that Congress allocated to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.