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An attorney at President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice sent an apology letter to the court and to the plaintiffs after the president’s controversial taxpayer-funded ads continued to air hundreds of times in violation of the judge’s order.
The ads began on Fox News earlier this month, showing the president railing against “communism, socialism, and Marxism” and the “fake news media,” themes borrowed from his campaign trail rhetoric. The ads have since aired on other networks, including CNN and MS NOW — two of the very media outlets, along with Politico, that Trump has been fighting to ban from the White House.
At the end of the ads was a disclaimer that read, “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” According to The Washington Post, the funds came from “$20 million the Office of Management and Budget added to a DHS budget line for ‘commemorative events.’”
Critics denounced the ads as propaganda and a waste of taxpayer money, as well as a potential violation of government ethics laws for being overtly political. Several congressional Republicans were among those criticizing the ads.
On Oct. 5, Trump responded to the backlash on his Truth Social account that he would pay for the ads with funds from his super PAC. Nonetheless, on Oct. 7, a coalition of plaintiffs sued the Trump administration, arguing that the “overtly political” ads were “personal and political propaganda through and through” and spending taxpayer funds on them was a violation of federal law. (The Democratic National Committee filed its own separate lawsuit challenging the ads as a violation of campaign finance laws.)
On Sunday, Judge Jennifer L. Rochon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an order directing the Trump administration to immediately halt airing the ads. Rochon was nominated to the federal bench by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2022. She previously clerked for Trump’s sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Berry, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
The exact language of the order instructed the administration that it “shall cancel or cause to be cancelled any slot, placement, reservation, or arrangement for the airing or dissemination of the challenged advertisements, including those placements for the evening of October 11, 2026” — meaning any ads that were scheduled to air that evening were included. The order was entered at 6:46 pm ET Sunday and further demanded that the administration file a status report within 24 hours “confirming compliance with this Order.”
The order said that it would remain in place for two weeks and also barred the administration “from using, disbursing, or transferring funds appropriated to the Department of Homeland Security (‘DHS’) to develop, create, disseminate, place, distribute, publish, or air the challenged advertisements.”
On Monday, attorneys for the plaintiffs sent a letter to the judge “to bring to the Court’s attention information relevant to Defendants’ compliance” with the order.
According to the letter, a report by The Washington Post and data from AdImpact found “nearly 400” incidents where the ads aired on several different television stations.
“Plaintiffs do not presently seek contempt sanctions,” the attorneys wrote. “But given that the ads have continued to run on October 12—the day after Defendants insisted the ad-buy was no longer effective—Plaintiffs request a status conference to determine Defendants’ compliance.”
Later Monday evening, Jeffrey Oestericher, an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, sent a letter to the court as part of the required status report. In the letter, he admitted the ads had run after the order instructed them to stop, offered an apology, and confirmed that the government was now complying with the judge’s order.
According to Oestericher, the DOJ attorneys emailed the judge’s order to DHS that evening, but the DHS counsel did not see the email until Monday morning, and then sent the order on to the vendor that had been handling the ad placements.
“The undersigned apologizes to the Court and the plaintiffs,” wrote Oestericher, and added a lengthy paragraph declaring that the government now “is in compliance with the [judge’s order],” including confirming that the defendants know they cannot spend any funds appropriated to DHS to create, distribute, or air the ads, that any placements of these challenged ads must be cancelled and cannot be renewed, and that the vendor has been notified about the terms of the order.
The post DOJ Attorney Apologizes to Court After Trump’s Taxpayer-Funded Ads Aired in Violation of Judge’s Order first appeared on Mediaite.
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