Smear

Pro-Trump Super PAC Rips Off Michael Bay Movie

The pro-Trump super PAC called Crippled America PAC is using its KKKlinton.com website to insinuate that Hillary Clinton has ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

A pro-Donald Trump super PAC—subtly titled Crippled America PAC—is trying its hardest to tie Hillary Clinton to the Ku Klux Klan.

The super PAC’s website, KKKlinton.com, features a photo of Clinton alongside late Sen. Robert Byrd, a member of the KKK in the ’40s who later repented. (However, if you’re in the Klan today, you are far more likely to be a huge Donald Trump fan than you are to be on Team Hillary.)

On Tuesday, The Huffington Post reported that the KKKlinton mastermind is (as the NRA is doing this cycle) now getting in on the pro-Trump, anti-Hillary Benghazi exploitation game.

Late last week, Crippled America sent out a blast email asking for money to help get its new ad on television. “The Clinton Cartel and their Super PACs have raised over $50 million this quarter,” the message reads. “Donald Trump needs our help to match their donations so we can win this November.”

Here’s the ad—which was probably made rather cheaply given how much of it was hoovered from other sources, including a Michael Bay movie:

Much of the audio, serving as ironic narration for Benghazi-related clips, is lifted directly from Hillary Clinton’s famous “3 a.m.” ad from the 2008 Democratic primary. And the opening clip of the Crippled America ad is taken from an action sequence in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Michael Bay’s 2016 film that dramatizes the story of the security team who defended the U.S. compound and CIA annex during the 2012 attack.

Here’s the original 13 Hours clip:

Apparently, the studio that made Bay's Benghazi movie isn't all too happy with the scene's inclusion in the new anti-Hillary attack ad.

"They did not seek approval and approval was not given," Katie Martin Kelley, spokeswoman for Paramount Pictures, told The Daily Beast. "Immediate action is being taken for the clip to be removed."

Upon its theatrical release, Bay’s movie quickly became a favorite of anti-Hillary Benghazi conspiracy theorists. Trump himself said in January that he would have liked to see the movie in theaters if he had time during the campaign. Furthermore, one of Trump’s sons apparently thinks that Americans should be required to see 13 Hours in order to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Crippled America PAC did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

Updated 7/6/2016, 6:28 p.m. ET.

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Asawin SuebsaengSenior Political Reporter

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