Trump campaign sends Loudoun County GOP chair cease and desist order over assassination merch

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. - Attorneys for former President Donald Trump’s campaign have warned the Loudoun County Republican Committee to stop selling merchandise featuring Trump, sending a cease and desist letter to the office earlier this month.

LCRC's website features assorted Trump merchandise including $35 t-shirts in three different color options along with a mouse pad and coffee mug – all depicting Trump mere seconds after the failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last month.

Scott Pio is the chairman of the Committee. He tells FOX 5 he's doing everything he can to get Trump elected. But in the cease and desist letter, the Trump campaign demanded that he "stop fundraising off the assassination attempt."

 The sharply worded letter accuses Pio of trying to capitalize on the failed attempt on Trump's life. 

"It came to the Campaign’s attention that less than twenty-four hours after an assassin tried to take President Trump’s life you were using the assassination attempt to raise money," the letter reads. "Your attempt to capitalize on the assassination attempt of President Trump was in extremely poor taste." 

Credit: Loudoun County Republican Committee

Lawyers from the Dhillon Law firm on behalf of the Trump campaign claim the sale of "bootleg" merchandise is in "direct defiance" of the campaign's request to stop misappropriating Trump's name, image and likeness and call it a violation of Virginia law. 

The attorney’s threatened to make it "painfully clear in court" Pio that if continues to sell the merchandise, he will be liable for punitive damages as well as all other damages. 

"Immediately cease and desist from all unauthorized use of President Trump’s name and likeness or we will pursue all claims against you. It will hurt," the lawyers wrote.

Pio says he’s just trying to do everything he can to win Virginia for Trump, and Loudoun County especially, he says, needs more patriotic merchandise.

Pio leads LCRC with over 400 members and more than 1,000 volunteers. He points to a letter the Trump campaign sent to Republican fundraisers nationwide in April after the campaign agreed to join forces with the RNC. 

The letter provides guidelines for using Trump's name, image and likeness to sell merchandise requires at least 5% go to the Trump national committee. Pio says they go above the minimum giving 10% quarterly of monies raised on merch sales.