Posted on 02/17/2012 10:12:40 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Newt Gingrich’s campaign is threatening to sue TV stations in upcoming primary states that are airing or plan to broadcast an ad from a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC accusing the former House Speaker of supporting the “one-child” Chinese policy that has been criticized as inhumane.
The ad in question, which is the work of the Restore Our Future super PAC and is already airing in the former House Speaker’s home state of Georgia, asserts Gingrich “co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.”
A letter from a Gingrich campaign lawyer sent to every TV station in the states with upcoming contests in the GOP presidential primary calls the ad “fundamentally NOT TRUE, or as PolitiFACT.org put it – a “Pants on Fire” lie.
If the stations air the ad “it will be a knowing publication of a false statement. As such, it represents a defamatory communication, which exposes this station to potential civil liability,” the letter asserts, demanding stations “immediately REFUSE, ad if started, CEASE airing any such advertisements and refrain from broadcasting their content until such time as the libelous statements have been removed.”
The ad refers to a 1989 bill for which Gingrich was among the co-sponsors (in all, 144 members attached their name to the bill). While the bill, House Resolution 1078, directed money to the U.N. Population Fund, which President Ronald Reagan opposed because it supported Chinese family planning efforts deemed inhumane, a provision in the measure explicitly prohibited funding for “the performance of involuntary sterilization or abortion or to coerce any person to accept family planning.”
The ad is a slight variation of one that Restore Our Future has been running heavily in multiple states since December, and the Gingrich campaign did not respond when asked why they were launching the official challenge now.
A well-connected Washington, D.C., campaign finance lawyer suggested the timing may be related to the fact that McKenna Long & Aldridge, the law firm of Gingrich’s top outside campaign counsel Stefan Passantino, represents TV stations in Georgia.
In fact, the Gingrich campaign paid another law firm, the Atlanta-based Hall Booth Smith & Slover, to send the letter to TV stations “to ensure there are no conflicts,” said Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond.
The Gingrich campaign said some of the stations that received the letter intended to report on it, but did not answer when asked if any planned to remove the ad.
This is not the first time that the Gingrich’s campaign has written TV stations to complain about a Restore Our Future ad. Last month, the campaign demanded more than 50 TV stations remove an ad from the super PAC that asserted Gingrich had been “fined” $300,000 by the House Ethics Committee in the 1990s for violations.
Restore Our Future pushed back in its own letter to the stations and none appear to have removed the ad. The super PAC did not respond to a request for comment on Gingrich’s latest demand.
Romney and his millionaire SUPER PAC friends are really something!
Romney and the establishment have waged all out war on the conservative base, the south and many who want to choose their candidate.
They are so desperate to see their north east socially liberal RINO that they have waged all out and out war and broken their own rules, stuffed the debates with their own k and i should know as I tried to get in only to find that the RINO’s were pout in place
What can we say. This is becoming a disaster.
I might have before but I will never vote for that scumbag Romney.
of course not. Remember how it was NOT to be mentioned his middle name or that he smoked?
The current War we fight against the Left is never fair. But one thing they have that we do not, is loyalty and a strong sense of unity, even when they are wrong and stupid.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restore_Our_Future
Check out “Contributors” One major one is a “hedge Fund Capitalist”, ANOTHER guuy like Romney. Another contributor is a front organization, now defunct.
Romney IS the Republican Obama. There is no low too low to stoop.
“of course not. Remember how it was NOT to be mentioned his middle name or that he smoked?”
or that he was born in Kenya.
The left is definitely united in stupidity, heh
RINO’s are more interested in attacking conservatives than the Democrats, I think we saw that in Dole and McCain
This was just one of about 6 different attack ads they ran in Florida morning, noon and night. The morning news show we watch out of Tampa, ran Romney and his PAC attack ads on Gingrich four and five times an hour.
Yes. I myself was watching Fox News Martha McCallum interviewing Talent with the Romney team a few months ago and she ran the whole Romney attack ad that Gingrich had sent a legal notice out about to all networks advising them not to run them as they were false. It said “Internet Ad” on the video so I am not sure if that is how Fox was able to get by with running it but I let Gingrich know what I saw and provided a link to it. I am fed up with the antics of Fox.
What they did and how they acted here in FL was sickening.
My wife and I had to live up there while he was Gov and every time we saw those AD’s we were screaming at the TV because of the lies he was saying.
Romney like obama cannot run on anything so they find an enemy and attack and the now pulling our of the debates shows they still fear Newt.
given up on FOX, When they hired Sally Kohn then we should all know that they have turned very much left wing and thanks to Megyn Kelly Kohn got the job at FOX.
for anyone who does not know who John is then you’ll be surprised at how radical she is and after trying to shut down, demean and insult FOX she now infiltrates.
http://www.infiltratednation.com/2012/01/fox-news-hires-soros-funded-activist.html
Is this not protected political speech?
Isn’t it legal to lie in political adds?
I’m not sure how Newt could win a law suit on this, because if he could, then the democrats could be sued for every single add they run, and everytime any one of them speaks.
Now, those questions being asked, and that being said, I really feel like Mitt Romney needs to be scraped from the shoe treads of conservatives with a twig.
I am no longer certain that I can vote for this POS if he wins the nomination, even if that means Obama gets re-elected -_-
Romney, and the GOP pretty much, make me want to RALPH.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.