A Republican group opposed to Donald Trump will run a new ad on Fox News and CNN this week in which an unexpected figure makes the legal case against the former president: Trump himself.
The new ad from the Republican Accountability Project highlights old comments from Trump on the importance of classified documents as he accused 2016 rival Hillary Clinton of mishandling sensitive materials.
“I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he said in a clip from a 2016 rally. In a clip from 2020, he said people “go to jail for that.”
Now, Trump stands accused of doing exactly what he spoke out against, not only allegedly keeping classified documents but doing so in sloppy conditions. One photograph shows boxes of documents piled up near a toilet at his Mar-a-Lago home.
“It’s time to hold Trump to Trump’s own standard,” the voiceover in the ad states:
Trump earlier this month pled not guilty to 37 counts related to keeping those documents.
“Donald Trump likes to talk about throwing his political opponents in jail for mishandling classified documents, but he’s the one who stole government secrets from the White House and refused to give them back,” Sarah Longwell, the organisation’s executive director, said in a news release. “We’re reminding Republican viewers that he should be held to his own standard.”
The Republican Accountability Project, which has launched video and billboard ad campaigns against the former president and his enablers in Congress, said it’s spending $1 million ( £783,750) to run the spots both nationally and in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Iowa and Wisconsin.