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With less than a week to go before the Republican primary this May, the office of Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron launched a paid video ad campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking, featuring the gubernatorial candidate himself.
To be clear, the video was not the work of Cameron’s political campaign. Instead, it was part of a public outreach program conducted by the commonwealth’s office of attorney general (OAG). And the costs weren’t underwritten by voluntary donors, but by a $175,000 taxpayer-backed federal grant that the OAG received from the Department of Justice in January.
Cameron was only able to use those taxpayer dollars because the ads were public service announcements, not political ads. But at least one important arbiter said the ads were, in fact, political: Google.