Tucker Carlson’s Legal Battles Just Took A Bizarre Turn

OPINION:  This article contains commentary which may reflect the author’s opinion

The political action committee that was attempting to draft the former host of Fox News Tucker Carlson into the campaign for president has been served with a cease-and-desist letter by attorneys representing Tucker Carlson.

On Tuesday, Carlson’s attorney Harmeet Dhillon released a letter that urges the PAC to cease soliciting contributions meant to pull Carlson into the 2024 campaign. The letter was obtained by Mediaite.

“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,” Dhillon 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,” she continued. “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.”

According to the records kept by the FEC, the “Draft Tucker PAC” was established not long after Tucker Carlson was fired from his position at Fox News on April 24. Among the operatives at the PAC are Charlie Kolean, a Republican strategist headquartered in Dallas, who serves as Executive Director, and Elizabeth Curtis, who serves as Treasurer.

Dhillon stated that taking legal action against the PAC is not out of the question in the event that Kolean and Curtis refuse to put a halt to their efforts to raise money.

“Mr. Carlson does not want his supporters to be fooled into sending their hard-earned money and contact information to a project run in his name that he does not support and that has no chance of succeeding in its stated aims, and thus will necessarily be using the funds and donor data for other, undisclosed purposes,” Dhillon concluded. “If you do not voluntarily stop your ‘Draft Tucker’ effort, we will use every legal option to prevent the misappropriation of Mr. Carlson’s name, likeness, and image, and to protect his supporters from fraud.”

According to The Hill, the group first filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission back in April, soon after Carlson was fired by Fox News.

Dhillon repeatedly denied in the letter that Carlson had any plans to run for president in 2024, an election that already has a packed Republican field that includes former President Donald Trump.

“Mr. Carlson is not now, and will not under any circumstances be, a candidate for President in the 2024 election,” Dhillon wrote. “Mr. Tucker unequivocally disavows your activities. Therefore, your efforts to raise money for a ‘draft’ committee are a waste of your time and the money of every donor to your committee, as you are on notice that these funds will not, in fact, be used for the purpose stated. Nor will the data you are collecting under false pretenses be used for the stated purpose.”

On Thursday night, the Draft Tucker PAC unveiled a new advertisement that will air for one full week beginning Monday on the conservative Newsmax cable channel.

“Republicans need a new leader, and Tucker Carlson is ready to lead,” the ad says. “No one in America is more articulate and pins down leftists in both parties better than Tucker.”

The ad draws parallels between the late Rush Limbaugh and the former Fox News anchor.

“Tucker Carlson is witty, sharp, and mocks woke nonsense,” the ad says. “Tucker will whip Biden in a debate.”

The PAC’s chairman and financial backer is former Texas congressional candidate and GOP contributor Chris Ekstrom.

Ekstrom claimed that he only has a “vague” familiarity with Carlson and that he was approached about starting the PAC before Fox News fired Carlson, but rejected the idea on the grounds that Carlson would still be a primetime presenter. However, he believes that worry is no longer present and that a Carlson presidential bid is a “realistic opportunity.” Neither former President Trump nor Ron DeSantis (R), the governor of Florida, are in his opinion “fully satisfactory.”

“I’m very concerned that they’re going to not move the debate as far right as it ought to be,” Ekstrom said. “If Tucker Carlson entered the race in a reasonable amount of time and just continued in the same territory that he was covering at Fox, I think that’d be a rude awakening for both President Trump and Governor DeSantis.”

The PAC’s executive director, a GOP political consultant named Charlie Kolean, believes Carlson’s popularity among voters will also have an impact on the other candidates in the primary.

Kolean told The Hill, “I think it will move the conversation to the right, just in a macro way, with candidates taking more solid stances rather than being like a moderate Republican.”

In 2021, Carlson said that he could run for president if he were “the last person on earth.” This month, he joked about running for president, telling an Insider reporter that he would declare his candidacy in New Hampshire before adding, “Totally kidding. Sorry.”

But it hasn’t stopped his supporters from encouraging him to take the plunge.

When Carlson was fired from Fox News, Republican presidential hopeful and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy claimed he would be “a good addition to the race.”

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