The News4 I-Team found six different nonprofit groups have spent more than $7 million airing ads on D.C. television stations promoting President Donald Trump and issues important to him since Inauguration Day, according to public filings available online.
Under federal regulations, the groups have no obligation to disclose their donors.
Almost as soon as the campaign-style ads started airing on D.C. television stations in January, viewers reached out to News4 with questions and concerns.
News4 viewer Jeannine — we are not publishing last names — wrote, "We are not in the midst of an election, so what are those ads for?"
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"It made me gasp," another viewer, Ruth, emailed.
The ads focus on issues important to the administration. One advocates for tax cuts. Another suggests a coming cure for cancer and other diseases. Many show patriotic and powerful images of the president.
While advocacy groups have used ads on D.C. television in the past to advocate for positions or pending legislation, experts in political advertising and spending told the News4 I-Team the tone and frequency of these ads is different.
"I think we're seeing more of it (issue advertising) than you might normally see this year because of the Trump Administration's move to make so many changes so quickly. People don't want to be left out if you have a stake in something," Brendan Glavin, the Director of Insights for Open Secrets, told the News4 I-Team. The nonprofit tracks money in politics.
The ads are not just running in D.C.
According to the ad tracking and analysis group Ad Impact, the groups are also airing ads in West Palm Beach, Florida. That television market is where President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home is located.
Ad Impact reports the groups (along with one other not on broadcast TV in D.C.) have spent $423,608 on ads in West Palm. The filed ad buys show they’re scheduled to run on Saturday and Sunday mornings — a time when the President is most often at his Florida home.
"My speculation is they're trying to make President Trump feel good about both himself and the people cutting and running the ads," said Pete Loge. Loge has created ads himself as a former consultant, and now studies them as the Director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University.
While the ads list on-screen the name of the group that paid for ad time, there is no requirement for the nonprofit groups to list donors.
"You should really trace the source of the funding for these ads," News4 viewer Brian wrote the station saying.
So, the I-Team went looking for who’s behind the ads.
"That’s a terrific question," Loge told the I-Team, "Nobody really knows except the people buying the ads, and we don't know who that is."
When the groups place an order for ad time, they provide a name and contact information for the group. The I-Team tried contacting them and visited many of the addresses listed on the forms.
National Interest Action, one of the groups airing ads, lists an address in Alexandria, Virginia, which is home to Huckaby, Davis, Lisker — a firm which according to their website provides "top-tier consulting services to Republican members of Congress, GOP Presidential and Congressional campaigns, GOP party committees, and corporate/trade political action committees."
Huckaby, Davis, Lisker is not a think tank, or a bank, or where the money comes from. They are an election compliance and political financial management firm.
It is also where the trail goes cold on where the money is coming from. The firm’s president is listed as the contact on the ad form. She did not respond to the I-Team for comment.
The pattern repeated itself for other groups airing ads.
Two more groups — Make America Affordable Again and Restoring Energy Dominance Coalition — list their address at a D.C. law firm, Dickinson Wright. The contact person on the ad forms is not listed as a lawyer on the firm’s website and the person who answered the phone had not heard of him when the I-Team asked.
The firm did not call us back.
Neither did Plymouth Union Public Advocacy, based at a DC row house, or Seniors 4 Better Care, which is based at an office building in Reston, Virginia.
The only group that got back to the I-Team was the Job Creators Network — started by the late co-founder of The Home Depot. Their ad, which ran during the NFL playoffs, praises President Trump's plan to cut taxes.
"Tax cuts can actually lead to higher revenues," the group’s CEO, Alfredo Ortiz, told the I-Team.
Like the other groups, The Job Creators Network does not disclose its donors. When asked, Ortiz said his group is funded by small businesses.
On whether the ad has been successful?
"I hope it will be,” Ortiz told the I-Team, “I think it's going in the right direction."
"Be aware that I will no longer be watching News4 or any of the programming on your network," Steven, another News4 viewer, emailed.
Broadcast television stations, which are licensed by the federal government, have no choice but to run ads from federal candidates. That has been the law for a long time.
In the case of these ads, News4 has chosen to run them. According to public filings available online, all the other commercial broadcast stations in DC are running the ads as well.
"This sort of activity is constitutionally protected," Open Secrets’ Glavin told the I-Team, in reference to the lack of transparency with donors. "The groups don't have to file and be on record with the Federal Election Commission because there's no election involved. And then we don't have any insight into who the donors are."
Glavin told the I-Team there is no limit on how much money they can spend, and aside from the name of the group, they don't have to reveal who is funding it.
But Loge, who worked on campaigns and in government for years, told the I-Team it’s unlikely those behind the ads aren’t hoping to get the attention of the president.
"Very little happens at that level of money in Republican or Democratic politics, so that the people at the top of the party know exactly who’s writing the checks."
