A new Republican super PAC is invoking the name of deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in an audacious attempt to defuse the volatile issue of abortion as a liability for Donald Trump.

The group, which is called RBG PAC and came into existence only days ago, began to spend $20 million Friday in support of Trump, according to federal records. The group posted two abortion-themed ads focused on Trump’s declaration that he would oppose a federal abortion ban.

The group’s paperwork was signed by May Mailman, who worked in the Trump White House and who is now director of the Independent Women’s Law Center. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Mailman posted the ads online and said they featured a “suburban mom” who had never voted for Trump before but was backing him now because he has said he opposes a national abortion ban.

The ad Mailman posted features a woman in a pink sweater sitting in a chair in a living room saying her life was better under Trump. She says that “freedom to choose is also important to me” and that she is voting for Trump, citing his support for exceptions to abortion restrictions in cases of rape, incest and risk to the life of the mother.

“His position is my position,” the woman says.

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Trump Took Credit for Overturning Roe v. Wade

Trump has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, which returned the issue of abortion to states, many of which have banned the procedure.

He has since worked to improve his standing with voters on the abortion issue, which polls show remains a significant advantage for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The RBG PAC’s website features two large pictures of Trump and Ginsburg and the words: “Great Minds Think Alike.”

The group’s use of Ginsburg’s name and likeness is particularly brash given that Trump, as president, appointed the Supreme Court justice who succeeded her. That appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, voted with the majority to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Clara Spera, the justice’s granddaughter and an abortion rights lawyer, denounced the PAC in a statement to The New York Times on behalf of her family.

“The RBG PAC has no connection to the Ginsburg family and is an affront to my late grandmother’s legacy,” Spera said in the statement. “The use of her name and image to support Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling.”

Ginsburg’s dying wish in 2020 was that she not be replaced on the Supreme Court until a new president was installed, Spera said at the time. Trump pushed ahead in the final weeks before losing reelection.

“My grandmother was a champion for the equality of women and specifically tied the right to abortion to women’s freedom and ability to participate in society,” Spera said Friday. “Meanwhile, Donald Trump gloats about his part in overturning Roe v Wade. He is a direct threat to reproductive liberty and equality.”

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Ginsburg Got Into Hot Water for Despising Trump

Ginsburg despised Trump so openly that she got herself into hot water for it. “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” she told the Times in a 2016 interview. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”

Although federal judges are expected to refrain from commenting on politics, Ginsburg kept going. “He is a faker,” she told CNN a few days later. “He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment.” The next day, she apologized publicly for what she called “ill-advised” comments. She was 83 years old, with a history of health problems, and later drew criticism from liberals who said she had overstayed her time on the court, setting the stage for Trump to replace her and help overturn the federal right to abortion.

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It is common at the end of a presidential campaign for so-called “pop-up” groups to begin spending large amounts of money after the last financial disclosure deadline. Any groups that were active by Oct. 16, the last day of the last filing period before Election Day, would have been required to disclose donors or vendors working with the group.

RGB PAC filed its paperwork Oct. 16.

“While it is permissible to game the system in this way under the FEC reporting rules that were written in the 1970s, in my experience only a campaign that believes that it is losing resorts to this tactic,” said Brett Kappel, a Democratic campaign-finance lawyer at the firm Harmon Curran.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Shane Goldmacher, Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman/Kenny Holston
c. 2024 The New York Times Company