Bucks County Democratic congressional candidate Bob Harvie and his campaign are suing a Republican Super PAC and its founder alleging they continue to publish false information in an attempt to discredit him and his reputation.
The Aug. 5 complaint filed in the U.S. District Court For Eastern Pennsylvania alleges Chris Pack and Defending America have “repeatedly and recklessly” published false and defamatory statements, including suggestions that Harvie is under federal criminal investigation.
Harvie’s complaint seeks more than $150,000 in damages and costs from Pack, a former National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson, and Defending America, which is campaigning for incumbent Republican First District Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick in the midterms.
The Defending America PAC is an independent “expenditure only” Super PAC with addresses in Athens, Georgia and Alden, New York. The lawsuit alleges Pack lives in Buffalo, New York.
Defending America has no public email. The lawsuit does not list an attorney representing Pack, and he did not immediately respond to email associated with his home address.
The lawsuit follows a cease-and-desist letter that Harvie sent to Pack and Defending America last month warning him that the allegations against him are “provably false,” and made with “reckless indifference” to their veracity, the lawsuit alleges.
Since Harvie, vice-chair of the Bucks County Commissioners, announced his intention to run for Congress, he alleges that Pack and Defending America have repeatedly, maliciously and falsely described him in social media posts and its website as an “FBI corruption subject” or alleged that Harvie is “under FBI investigation.”
Most recently, Harvie alleges that Pack and the PAC have doubled-down on their false attacks by leveling “outrageous accusations of inappropriate conduct with a county employee without any substantiation,” according to the lawsuit.
Harvie denied he had an extramarital affair with a county employee while serving as commissioner and he denied accusations that he used his position to influence promotion decisions.
“This is not a mere political attack in a hotly contested campaign,” Harvie said in the lawsuit, alleging “unscrupulous out-of-state political operatives” are intentionally pushing “provably false” information in an effort to damage his reputation in the community.
“Defendants are making their statements based upon undisclosed defamatory facts or with reckless indifference to whether their statements are true or false. Either way, Defendants acted with actual malice, even in a hotly contested political campaign,” the lawsuit said.
For years Harvie has repeatedly denied accusations that he was the subject of an FBI investigation, allegations that are connected to a federal probe involving political donations and union contracts related to Falls and the Pennsbury School District that first surfaced publicly in 2020.
The federal government never publicly confirmed the investigation, but multiple current and former Falls officials have stated that they were subpoenaed and testified before a federal grand jury.
Harvie, a former Falls supervisor, acknowledged that he appeared before the grand jury as a witness in 2021 in his former supervisor capacity. In his lawsuit, he maintains he has not been in contact with federal investigators since 2022.
The federal probe involving Falls Township reportedly has ended and no charges against anyone have been filed.
This isn’t the first time Republican opponents have attempted to cast Harvie as the subject of an FBI investigation, the lawsuit alleges.
In his 2023 county commissioner re-election campaign, his opponents sent campaign mailers alleging Harvie was “wrapped up in an FBI investigation,” which Harvie called “categorically false,” the lawsuit alleges. The Republican candidates later put out a mailer denouncing the accusations and apologized, according to the lawsuit.
The First Congressional District is also not the first time that Pack has been hired to wade into a contentious Bucks County political contest.
In the 2023 Central Bucks School Board race, Bucks Families For Leadership PAC, which backed Republican candidates, hired media affairs communication campaign consultants including Axiom Strategies and the Breakwall Group which are tied to Pack, according to POLITICO.
