Fact check: Campaign ads from leading GOP PAC misleading

Congressional Leadership Fund, the highest-spending super PAC seeking to sway House races in the upcoming midterms, has been flooding TV airwaves around the country with ads attacking Democrats running in close races. But we found that some of those ads are misleading.

• In Ohio, a CLF ad misleadingly suggests that Democratic candidate Aftab Pureval was “selling out Americans” because he worked “at a D.C. lobbying firm” that “made millions helping Libya reduce payments owed to families of Americans killed by Libyan terrorism.” Pureval never did any lobbying, and the Libyan settlement was signed before he joined the firm.
• In Virginia, an ad attacking Abigail Spanberger claims she would vote for a Medicare for All bill — but Spanberger has said she does not support the bill.
• Another ad attacking Spanberger calls her “a risk we can’t afford” because “Spanberger taught at an Islamic school called Terror High, a school so radical one graduate tried to kill President Bush.” Before joining the CIA, Spanberger was a long-term substitute AP English teacher at the Virginia school for a year, several years after the man graduated.
• An ad in Washington’s 8th District misleading claims Kim Schrier’s support for a state income and carbon tax would make taxes overall “much worse.” Schrier said the state, which relies on high sales taxes, should “move toward a progressive income tax.” But there’s no detailed plan to assess whether it would result in a net tax increase.
• In Illinois, an ad attacking Brendan Kelly claims he “pled out” 50 percent of crimes as state’s attorney for St. Clair County. But that figure is both inaccurate and unremarkable. St. Clair’s actual rate is comparable to the state’s and those of its five surrounding counties.

Congressional Leadership Fund, which bills itself as “the super PAC endorsed by House Republican leadership,” is by far the biggest-spending super PAC attempting to influence races in the upcoming November elections. It announced in early October that it had surpassed its $100 million fundraising goal to help elect Republicans to the House in the midterm elections. To date, the group says it has amassed a war chest of $132 million.

All four of the House races we write about here are rated as “toss-ups” by the Cook Political Report.

In Ohio, twisting work at law firm

An ad CLF is running in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District misleadingly suggests that Democratic candidate Aftab Pureval, in his work “at a D.C. lobbying firm,” was “selling out Americans” because the firm “made millions helping Libya reduce payments owed to families of Americans killed by Libyan terrorism.”

Pureval worked at a large law firm that does a bit of lobbying work. But he never did any lobbying work for the firm. Nor was he involved with a settlement the firm helped to negotiate on behalf of the Libyan government to compensate victims of terrorism. Furthermore, Pureval’s opponent, as a member of the House, signed off on the deal.