A political action committee launched to push Fox News host Tucker Carlson into the 2024 presidential race has shut down after receiving a legal threat from Carlson’s attorney.
The Draft Tucker PAC was launched after Fox News took Carlson off the air and canceled his primetime show. Carlson is still under contract with Fox News and likely bound by a non-compete clause from relaunching another show, something he has promised to do. He is reportedly negotiating his departure from the network.
The Draft Tucker PAC was launched amid speculation that Carlson might enter the presidential race. Harmeet Dhillon, Carlson’s attorney, shut down that speculation on Monday in a cease-and-desist letter to the PAC.
“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,” Dhillon wrote in the letter obtained by The Hill. “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.”
“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,” the attorney continued, according to The Daily Beast. “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.”
Dhillon asked the PAC to preserve documents, adding, “Mr. Carlson may be forced to pursue litigation.”
Draft Tucker executive director Charlie Kolean told The Washington Times that Carlson’s attorney had asked the PAC to “cease all activities on his behalf. We are going to honor that request.”
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Before it shut down, the PAC raised just $212 online, PAC chairman Chris Ekstrom told The Hill. Ekstrom put in $35,000 of his own money. He said the $212 raised online would be donated to charity or returned to donors.
Draft Tucker had been running ads on Newsmax calling for Carlson to run. It asked the conservative news outlet to pull the ads following Dhillon’s letter.