GOP Senate Candidate Faces Legal Threats for Running Ad on Democrat Failures and Lawlessness

Democrats and far-left companies hate it when you tell the truth about the destruction of leftist policies.

It may even get you a lawsuit.

GOP Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley received legal threats for an ad exposing failed Democrat policies in Washington state.

Three far-left Seattle-based companies demanded Smiley stop using them in her ads on Democrat failures and lawlessness.

Smiley ran an ad showing a shuttered Starbucks coffee shop in downtown Seattle.

Starbucks to Close All Seattle Locations Due to High Rate of Crimes Against Coffee: https://t.co/7X8wkrcnhP pic.twitter.com/MPzX4QWf4l

— The Needling (@TheNeedling) July 13, 2022

Violent crime and lawlessness has become so rampant in Seattle that not even Starbucks wants to operate in the city.

Watch the ad HERE:

The truth hurts.

In response, The Seattle Times and Starbucks sent legal threats to the Republican Senate candidate.

Starbucks and Seattle Times send legal threats to Republican Senate candidate after she exposes high crime rates in cityhttps://t.co/uS822eOoZW

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 3, 2022

.@Starbucks & @seattletimes sent legal threats to a Republican senator candidate for an ad where she stood in front of an abandoned Starbucks near former CHAZ that was destroyed by #Antifa. Seattle Times said it was illegal for her to show their headlines. https://t.co/0AgXfcHOTb

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) October 2, 2022

After the Seahawks, Starbucks and Seattle Times complained that Tiffany Smiley’s campaign misused their logos, the candidate fired back, including with an FEC complaint against The Times. https://t.co/8HPd9pT09t

— The Seattle Times (@seattletimes) October 1, 2022

The Seattle Times threatened Smiley for using an image from their report on Starbucks closing its doors.

From The Seattle Times:

Three Seattle-based corporations, including The Seattle Times, have asked Tiffany Smiley, the Republican challenger for U.S. Senate, to stop using their copyrighted material in campaign ads, spurring a fiery response from Smiley’s campaign, which filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission.

The Seattle Times, Starbucks and the Seattle Seahawks each, over the past few weeks, has objected to Smiley campaign ads that contain the companies’ corporate logos.

In response, Smiley’s campaign accused The Seattle Times of illegally using corporate resources to support her opponent, Sen. Patty Murray, a five-term Democrat.

Both candidates have raised millions of dollars for a campaign in which Smiley has focused on issues of inflation and crime and said Murray has little to show for her 30 years in office, while Murray has touted Democratic victories on COVID aid, health care and climate and hit Smiley for opposing abortion rights.

Smiley’s campaign lawyers Thursday wrote to the FEC, accusing The Seattle Times of letting Murray use the newspaper’s logo and headlines in ads for her 2016 campaign, while objecting when Smiley did similarly this year.

On Friday, Smiley’s campaign publicized the FEC complaint, and the letters from all three companies.

The Post Millennial added:

The Smiley campaign claimed that the outlet provided the Murray campaign with a prohibited in-kind contribution. According to the complaint, the Smiley for Washington campaign would have to spend an estimated $5,000 to remove and update the ad—“costs that Patty Murray does not have to accrue.”

The complaint cited FEC regulations stating, “if a corporation makes its resources available for free, it must do so for all candidates.”

According to a press release from the Smiley campaign, “Since corporate resources were used for arbitrary enforcement of its copyright claims, The Seattle Times clearly violated federal election law by providing a prohibited corporate in-kind contribution to Patty Murray’s campaign.”

The statement noted “fair use is intended to protect and promote freedom of expression, which … allows The Seattle Times to publish extreme leftist commentary and pretend that it is news” and while their “political affiliation may not align with Tiffany Smiley’s,” the legal claims made have “no merit.”

Starbucks also sent a certified letter to the campaign claiming that Smiley appropriated its intellectual property and complaining the ad might “create an unfounded association in the minds of consumers between Starbucks and your campaign.”