Bob Unruh served as a loyal stenographer for the Trump campaign in a June 25 WorldNetDaily article:
Jokes about voting are common. “Vote early, vote often,” is one that’s been around forever. It’s not really intended to mean, in a serious way, that people commit election fraud.
But last year a Twitter personality was convicted and sentenced to seven months in prison for telling people to vote for Hillary Clinton by text message, which is not possible.
Now that precedent could become more important, as President Donald Trump’s campaign has caught an organization supporting Joe Biden’s campaign in Pennsylvania promoting an ad with lies about Trump.
The campaign announced it has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Pennsylvania Values PAC “for airing a false television ad that may interfere with the right of Trump supporters to cast their ballots.”
“Biden and his allies will stop at nothing to interfere with this election because Crooked Joe is losing nationally and in battleground states like Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Values PAC is peddling lies to prevent voters exercising their right to vote. President Trump has been clear that his supporters should use all legal methods to cast a ballot this election. In just the last two weeks at events in front of thousands of Americans – including in Pennsylvania – President Trump has encouraged supporters to visit SwamptheVoteUSA.com, a website that promotes all legal voting methods. To say otherwise in advertising, as this false TV commercial does, represents an intentional effort to mislead Pennsylvania voters, suppress Trump supporters, and disrupt a fair election this fall,” explained campaign adviser Brian Hughes.
An investigation into possible criminal elements also is being requested.
The letter takes issue with the ad supporting Biden that claims “President Trump has asked Pennsylvania voters not to vote by mail.”
But Unruh censored a key piece of information that discredits his article (and the lawsuit): the ad in question uses clips of Trump himself discouraging mail-in voting. As a real news operation reported:
“MAGA Patriots, listen to our president,” the ad from Pennsylvania Values PAC begins, before it splices together sound bites of Trump condemning mail voting.
“Mail in voting is totally corrupt, get that through your head,” Trump says in one such clip.
The 30-second ad ends with the on-screen text: “Stand strong with President Trump against mail in voting!”
Unruh offered no evidence that those clips are inaccurate or that the Trump campaign disputes their accuracy. Trump has recently changed his tune on mail-in voting, but as recently as February, Pennsylvania Republicans were fighting with Trump over this issue and pushing to promote mail-in voting over his objections.
Unruh also obfuscated the issue by referring to a man who was sent to prison for “telling people to vote for Hillary Clinton by text message.” That’s a reference to right-wing troll Douglass Mackey, whom Unruh actually defended earlier this year for doing that, dismissing his work — which targeted black voters — as a “joke” despite his history of racist and anti-woman rhetoric.