Wisconsin congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke's campaign has fired off a formal cease-and-desist letter accusing Rep. Derrick Van Orden of running attack ads built on fabricated AI-generated footage of her.
The letter, sent by Ben Stafford of Elias Law Group on behalf of Cooke for Congress, centers on a video Van Orden's campaign posted to X on August 4, purporting to show Cooke speaking "on the campaign trail" in Eau Claire with former President Joe Biden seated behind her. According to the letter, the video attributes a fabricated statement to Cooke about wanting Wisconsinites to have free electricity "as much as possible," even if it means corruption, a scene and quote Cooke's attorneys say never happened and a position she never actually took.
The letter lays out the legal elements of a defamation claim under Wisconsin common law: a false statement, published to a third party, made with actual malice, and damaging to the plaintiff's reputation. Stafford argues the AI-generated video checks every box.
"By producing this AI-generated image of Ms. Cooke, for the patently obvious purpose of harming Ms. Cooke's reputation for your own political advantage," the letter states, describing the clip as defamatory.
The letter also accuses Van Orden's campaign of deliberately exploiting a gap in Wisconsin law, noting the state's deepfake disclosure statute applies only to state-level campaign committees and doesn't currently cover federal candidates the way many states are now moving to require.
"Not only are these ads beneath the dignity of your office, but Wisconsin's common law of defamation fills the gaps yet remaining in Wisconsin's statutory protections against fake AI," the letter states.
Stafford frames the dispute against the backdrop of rising public anxiety over AI data centers straining local resources nationwide, noting that Cooke has called for a moratorium on new data center construction while Van Orden has voiced support for building more.
"The people of Wisconsin deserve better. They deserve a campaign where the candidates debate the very real differences they have on the issues... Instead, you are spending your day posting AI slop disparaging Ms. Cooke. Enough," the letter states.
Van Orden has been a controversial figure both before and during his time in elected office. He was present at the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and more recently got caught on camera proclaiming he wants to "(expletive) punch someone in the face."