Trump Administration Blows Through Court Order On Propaganda Ads Because Nobody Checked Their Email

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to stop running the Department of Homeland Security’s taxpayer-funded ode to Donald Trump, immediately. The administration then managed to violate that order within hours because, according to its own lawyers, nobody at DHS checked their email.

Cool, great, very professional.

On Sunday evening, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon of the Southern District of New York granted a temporary restraining order and a stay under the Administrative Procedure Act in the Common Cause-led challenge to the $20 million taxpayer-funded campaign ad blitz, the one that moved money Congress gave DHS for border security into national TV spots praising the president weeks before the midterms. Rochon, a Biden appointee, stayed DHS’s purchase order with its ad vendor, LMD Agency, stayed the Office of Management and Budget’s $20 million apportionment, and barred the department from spending appropriated funds on the ads. And because she could read a calendar, she ordered the government to “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.” The order was effective as of 6:45 p.m. Sunday.

To appreciate how that played out, you need to know how the government defended the ads, because, well, it didn’t. As Law Dork’s Chris Geidner reported, the Justice Department opposed the TRO without saying a word about whether the ads were legal. DOJ recited the Supreme Court’s standard for preliminary relief, likelihood of success on the merits included, and then skipped that factor entirely. The actual argument was that the plaintiffs (Common Cause; Robert Hunter, an Alabama state senate candidate; a union; and the union’s PAC) lacked standing, had filed in the wrong venue, and would suffer no irreparable harm because the ads were ending Sunday anyway. Holly Mehringer, the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Chief Financial Officer at DHS, swore out a declaration that the vendor had bought airtime through October 11 “at an approximate cost of $19,000,000.”

So the defense of spending $19 million in federal money on Trump’s greatest hits was, more or less, “but we’re almost done anyway.” That’s the equivalent of telling the state trooper that sure, you were doing 95 mph, but your exit is coming up.

The plaintiffs called it what it was. “That attempt to run out the clock does not cut against issuing a TRO and a Section 705 stay; it shows why the Court should grant relief today,” they wrote in their reply. And Judge Rochon agreed.

Well, about that…

On Monday, the plaintiffs told the court the ads kept running Sunday night, and a few more aired early Monday. DOJ’s required status report, filed Monday evening, offered this explanation:

As Your Honor is aware, the Court emailed the TRO to the parties yesterday at 6:46 p.m. Counsel for the Government emailed the TRO to agency counsel at 7:58 p.m. Agency counsel did not become aware of Government counsel’s email until this morning. The undersigned apologizes to the Court and the plaintiffs.

“Sorry, just seeing this!”

DHS now says it’s in compliance, LMD has been told it’s enjoined, and both the purchase order and the apportionment are stayed. The TRO lasts 14 days unless extended, and Rochon is rescheduling Tuesday’s conference.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic National Committee’s parallel suit in D.C., Main Justice’s Federal Programs Branch did attempt a merits defense, which mostly boils down to the claim that something only counts as impermissible propaganda if it’s “completely devoid of any connection with official functions.” That hearing is set for Thursday morning. We’ll see if anyone over there has better luck with the inbox.

Earlier: Former Bush Ethics Lawyer: Trump’s Taxpayer-Funded Campaign Ad Could Be An Impeachable Offense