"MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" TRADEMARK APPLICATION FILED NOVEMBER 19, 2012, THIRTEEN DAYS AFTER 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
In a tweet published yesterday afternoon in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian people and 3 Russian companies, Donald Trump made a mad stab at protective cover with (what else?) a tweet.
Mueller's indictment focuses primarily on propaganda efforts of one Russian group in particular: the Internet Research Agency.
The group’s operations — social media posts, online ads, and rallies in the US — were “primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump,” the indictment claims.
Seizing on indictment's “from in or around 2014 to the present” timeline, Trump asserted his campaign did nothing wrong because he didn't formally announce his intention to run until June 16, 2015.
However, Trump began laying the legal foundation for a 2016 run in late 2012, with the trademark application for “Make America Great Again”, excerpted from official USPTO documents and shown below.
Trump signed the application on November 11, 2012, and it was formally filed the next day on his behalf by New York City law firm Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.
