A pro-Tucker Carlson super PAC encouraging the former Fox News host to run for president in 2024 has been slapped with a cease-and-desist letter.
In a three-page legal letter sent Monday and obtained by The Daily Beast, the ex-Fox News star’s lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, ripped into the “Draft Tucker PAC”—in part over the group’s effort to solicit donations using Carlson’s “image and likeness.”
“It has come to Mr. Carlson’s attention that you are soliciting contributions and donor contact information from the public by representing that the funds will be used to draft Mr. Tucker to run for President in 2024,” the right-wing lawyer, who recently ran for RNC chair, wrote. “Mr. Carlson will not run for President in 2024 under any circumstances, and therefore your misrepresentations are damaging to Mr. Carlson and defrauding his supporters.”
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“If you do not immediately cease and desist your efforts to solicit money to ‘draft’ Mr. Carlson, we will use every legal means at our disposal to vindicate his rights and protect his supporters from these misrepresentations,” the letter continued.
Dhillon then accused the PAC of raising funds without Carlson’s approval.
“You are using Mr. Carlson’s name and image for the value associated with it, trading on his good name to raise money for an organization Mr. Carlson does not support and for a goal he expressly and unreservedly stated he will never pursue,” she wrote on Carlson’s behalf. “You appear to be using Mr. Carlson’s name, image, and likeness for your own benefit, including by raising money using Mr. Carlson’s name that you are using to pay yourselves and collecting a valuable list of donor’s contact information that you can then sell or lease for more profit.”
The letter additionally called for the PAC to preserve documents. “Mr. Carlson may be forced to pursue litigation,” the letter added.
The PAC’s treasurer Elizabeth Curtis and executive director Charlie Kolean—whom the letter is addressed—did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s emailed request for comment. The PAC also appeared to have deleted its Twitter account Monday night, shortly after the letter was sent.
In a now-deleted tweet, the PAC wrote last Friday that “it’s time to draft Tucker Carlson.”
“Republicans need a new leader that can stand up to Biden,” the tweet added.
