(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to an Arizona legislative candidate, Mark Brnovich, who denied election fraud in 2020.
Brnovich is running to be a state Senator in Arizona and one of his opponents, Blake Masters, received a Trump endorsement.
Despite Trump endorsing his opponent, Brnovich has continued to use the former president’s image in his successful fundraising campaign, reported the Daily Caller. Brnovich has raised over $2.5 million, according to the Federal Elections Commission.
The response received from Trump lawyers indicated a concern regarding Brnovich’s deceptive practice.
“Your use of President Trump’s name, image, and/or likeness is likely to deceive individuals into believing President Trump supports, endorses, or otherwise promotes your candidacy for U.S. Senate in Arizona — he does not,” the letter informed, according to the Washington Post.
Trump has chastised Brnovich in the past.
In 2020, Brnovich denied that any vote fraud occurred in Arizona. Brnovich argued that “if indeed there was some great conspiracy” to defraud Republicans out of votes in 2020, then “it apparently didn’t work,” reported Azcentral.
When the election results came in for Biden in 2020, Brnovich, then-attorney general of Arizona, reported that there was “no evidence, there are no facts that would lead anyone to believe that the election results will change.”
Trump has indicated that Brnovich’s stance on the election did play a role in a refusal to endorse him. President Trump described Brnovich as a “disappointment,” according to the Daily caller.
In endorsing Brnovich’s opponent, Blake Masters, Trump said that Masters “understands what took place in the 2020 Presidential Election, and that it was Rigged and Stolen.”
This is not Trump’s first run-in with Republicans using his name for fundraising without permission. The Republican National Committee has also received a cease-and-desist letter for using Trump’s image without permission, but it has refused to stop.
According to the Daily Caller, the RNC said that Trump is a public figure, and the RNC can “refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech.”
