Barack Obama and a conservative group have escalated their fight over the group's TV commercial linking him to a 1960s radical, by firing off dueling letters to the Department of Justice.
The Obama camp argued that the organization, the American Issues Project, is violating the law. The group cited a Supreme Court ruling to argue it is allowed to air the ad, which links Obama to 1960s radical William Ayers.
The group's ad assailed Barack Obama last week for his alleged ties to former 1960's Weather Underground radical William Ayers. The ad uses footage of 9/11 as a backdrop to ask, "Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"
The Obama campaign has responded by charging that the ad is in violation of federal campaign finance laws and asking the networks not to air it. Fox and CNN have complied, but the ad has run widely on local stations in several states, and Obama supporters have responded by "inundating" those stations with emails. The Obama campaign has also sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal investigation of possible violations of election law.
The American Issues Project has now struck back with a press release complaining of "a campaign of intimidation and legal threats to convince television stations and the federal government to force off the air an ad by the American Issues Project detailing the link between Sen. Obama and remorseless domestic terrorist William Ayers."
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Attack_ad_producers_complain_of_Obama_0826.htmlObama camp: Prosecute Simmons
Obama general counsel Bob Bauer today sent a second, sharper letter to the Justice Department, directly attacking the Dallas billionaire funding a harsh attack ad, Harold Simmons.
"We reiterate our request that the Department of Justice fulfill its commitment to take prompt action to investigate and to prosecute the American issues Project, and we further request that the Department of Justice investigate and prosecute Howard (sic) Simmons for a knowing and willful violation of the individual aggregate contribution limits," he wrote.
He called the group's activities "patently illegal."
Bauer made the case that Simmons' group fulfilling its a real nonprofit charter because it hasn't spent any money on anything other than attacking Obama.
The American Issues Project released a statement responding to the letter.
"Having failed in its attempts to get our legal, factual and fully-supported ad off the air, Barack Obama's campaign now wants to put our donors in prison for exercising their right to free speech," said Ed Martin, the group's president. "These over-the-top bullying tactics are reminiscent of the kind of censorship one would see in a Stalinist dictatorship, with the only difference being that those guys generally had to wait until they were in power to throw people who disagreed with them into jail."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/Obama_camp_Prosecute_Simmons.html
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