Gillum demands that TV stations stop airing Republican ad calling him ‘corrupt’

The Andrew Gillum campaign says it has sent a cease-and-desist letter to television stations running a Republican Party of Florida commercial that labels the Democratic gubernatorial candidate “corrupt” and attempts to directly tie him to an ongoing FBI investigation.

The ad says Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, is “running from the FBI” and also includes the text “Andrew Gillum FBI Investigation.” It cites reports over the past year that documented the exploits of federal investigators who posed undercover as businessmen interested in doing business in the city.

Subpoenas sent to the city in 2017 and uncovered by the Tallahassee Democrat show the investigation has focused on the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and on several entrepreneurs and lobbyists, one of whom is a college friend of Gillum and former mayoral campaign treasurer. But Gillum, who met with the FBI around the time that news of the investigation broke last year, has long said he was told he is not a subject of the investigation.

Gillum’s campaign also argues that the ad crosses the line by using the words “possibly illegal” and “illegal” to describe much-scrutinized trips that the mayor took to Costa Rica with Tallahassee lobbyists with whom the mayor is friendly, and to New York with businessmen who turned out to be undercover FBI agents. The commercial uses a picture published by the media that shows Gillum on a boat in New York with lobbyist and former volunteer campaign treasurer Adam Corey, who was among the individuals named in federal subpoenas sent to the city.

The ad cites a Tallahassee Democrat article as the basis for the “possibly illegal” trips claim, but the article discusses an ethics investigation, not the FBI probe, Burhans writes. Finally, Burhans objects to a statement in the ad that alleges that Gillum refuses to say who’s paid him, arguing that it misstates a POLITICO Florida article that detailed a list of receipts and bank statements Gillum released to the media shortly after his primary election win. LINK