CNN legal expert Ryan Goodman said Monday that federal law “could not be clearer” when it comes to President Donald Trump using taxpayer dollars for campaign-style advertisements promoting himself weeks before the crucial midterm elections.
CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Goodman, an NYU law professor and former special counsel for the Department of Defense, whether there was “any question” about the legality of White House employees using government resources to produce the ads.
“There’s not,” Goodman said Monday on “OutFront,” rating the legal clarity “a 9.5 or 10” out of 10.
Goodman pointed to the Hatch Act as well as a decades-old appropriations restriction barring federal funds from being used for unauthorized “publicity or propaganda.”
When the restriction was adopted, Goodman said, lawmakers specifically raised concerns about using public money for “individual glorification of executive officials.”
Burnett appeared stunned.
“It literally says it cannot be used to glorify an individual?” she asked. “That’s clairvoyant; I’m just saying who would’ve thought of such a phrasing, but yet here we are.”
Goodman on Monday also pointed to guidance from the Government Accountability Office barring “self-aggrandizement.” He continued building his case by quoting one taxpayer-funded Trump ad declaring the president “the toughest, most resilient person I’ve ever met.”
“That is the textbook definition of self-aggrandizement,” Goodman said. “And it could not be clearer.”
Conservative commentator S.E. Cupp later argued the ads also undercut Trump’s attacks on Democrats as communists.
“It’s really hard for Republicans to run on, ‘Don’t elect communists,’ when the dear leader-in-chief is doing communist stuff,” Cupp said.