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Well, well — isn’t this special?

Trump campaign threatens Loudoun County GOP with lawsuit over merch sales.

For several weeks, the Loudoun County Republican Party has been selling merchandise on its website highlighting a photo of former president Donald Trump triumphantly surviving a July 13 assassination attempt.

Among the eight shooting-themed items for sale: “Trump is Victorious after being shot Red T-shirt” for $35; “Trump Got Shot and is Victorious Coffee Mug” for $15.52; “Trump is Shot and is Victorious Mouse Pad” for $13.47.

The former president’s campaign is not happy about this fundraising effort.
In a sharply worded letter to Loudoun County Republican Party Chairman Scott Pio, lawyers for the campaign called on him to “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.”

David A. Warrington, general counsel for Trump’s presidential campaign, wrote in the letter that the day after the assassination attempt Pio had used the event to raise money. “Your attempt to capitalize on the assassination attempt of President Trump was in extremely poor taste,” he wrote.

Warrington added that Pio had been told by the campaign in a telephone call to “cease and desist from this ghoulish activity.”

“You agreed to stop fundraising off of the assassination attempt, and further agreed to stop any merchandising based on the assassination attempt,” Warrington wrote in the Aug. 6 letter. “Despite your commitment, we are aware that you are now selling President Trump themed merchandise using a photograph of President Trump taken shortly after the assassin’s bullet nearly took his life.”

A copy of the letter was posted Saturday evening on X by an anonymous account, @ShadowValo81134. Trump’s lawyers did not respond to email or phone messages seeking comment Sunday. Spokespeople for Trump’s campaign did not respond immediately to emails sent Sunday afternoon.

Pio confirmed on Sunday that he had received the letter but chose not to comment other than to say, “The internal firing squad of the Republican Party needs to stop. This is why we are losing the country, because the Republican Party keeps internally fighting with itself. And I want Trump to win.”

On Sunday afternoon, the shooting-themed items remained available for purchase on the Loudoun County Republican Party website.

But there may be more to the merchandise squabble than meets the eye. A longtime Virginia Republican strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could speak freely, said the dispute is a result of tension and distrust between Loudoun County Republicans who have it out for each other. Pio was reelected to his two-year term as county party chairman in March, a race he won by 37 votes. The person said people who want Pio out may have pointed the Trump campaign’s attention to the website.

“It’s all drama nonsense, to be perfectly honest,” the person said.

The county Republican Party would seem to be an unlikely target for the Trump campaign’s ire as other Republican groups and individuals have been selling shooting-themed merchandise.

“The idea of selling merchandise to capitalize on an event like this is not unheard of,” Marc Farinella, senior adviser to the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, told The Washington Post last month. “Trump surviving an assassination attempt, his fist in the air in defiance, it all fits into the narrative about Trump that Trump and his supporters want to tell.”

Trump’s official merchandise page includes a T-shirt with an image of him from that day with his fist in the air and the word “FIGHT” below it. And shirts and other merchandise featuring images following the assassination attempt were big sellers at the Republican National Convention last month.

Perhaps anticipating that the Loudoun County Republican Party would point to these other examples, Warrington wrote in his letter to Pio, “It is no defense to assert “the Campaign, does it, so I can, too.” Make no mistake, you cannot, and we are willing to make that painfully clear to you in court.”