The Democratic National Committee sued the Trump administration in federal court on Wednesday, asking a judge in Washington to stop the president from using taxpayer funds to air a series of ads promoting himself, arguing that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda.

The ads promoting Donald Trump, including one recycled from his 2024 presidential campaign, have cost taxpayers more than $12m so far, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

Ken Martin, the DNC chair, said in a statement that Trump was misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November. Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes.”

After a bipartisan backlash to the use of public money to promote himself during the final month of the midterm campaign season, Trump claimed on Monday that he would direct the Maga Inc Super Pac he controls to pay for the ads instead.

The next day, however, the White House said Trump’s political action committee would not reimburse taxpayers for the money it had already spent on the ads. Then, when the government unveiled a fifth ad in the series, celebrating Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela, it was also paid for by the US government.

The DNC complaint, filed in the US district court for the District of Columbia, alleges the ads violate federal law, including a ban on congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda”.

“President Trump personally directed this illegal activity. The White House office crafted the partisan campaign. The office of management and budget shifted $20m to pay for it. And US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has carried it out. These unlawful actions are ultra vires and violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),” the complaint states.

The suit also notes the first ad in the series features an image of Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, awarding Trump the so-called “Fifa peace prize” to support its case that the ads all violate a prohibition on the use of taxpayer funds for “self-aggrandizement”.

The complaint also references new polling from Reuters/Ipsos released on Tuesday which found that an overwhelming majority of Americans, 86%, ​called it inappropriate to use taxpayer funds for TV ads featuring the president around an election. The survey reported that 80% of Republicans called the ads inappropriate, with only 17% of the president’s party approving of them.

According to the suit, the ads have been broadcast on ABC, NBC, MS Now, CBS, CNN, Fox News and Newsmax, and appeared during popular NFL and college football games, and news and entertainment shows in which the president has been criticized, including Meet the Press, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Saturday Night Live.

The federal lawsuit also includes details of another eight ads that have already been prepared for broadcast and were found “in a Dropbox account controlled by LMD Agency Inc, the government contractor bringing the ads to air”.

The ads ready to be broadcast include: one that celebrates the UFC fights staged at the White House on Trump’s birthday in June; one titled “God Made Trump,” a fan-created hymn of praise to Trump that was shown during the Republican midterm convention; one titled “Resilience,” which includes images of Trump announcing his candidacy for the presidency in 2015, then being charged in Fulton county, Georgia, in 2023 for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and video of the assassination attempt on him during the 2024 election campaign; one titled “King of the Jungle,” which shows a lion hunting in the wild and disparages Trump’s political enemies, including former president Barack Obama. In February, Trump shared a racist video on social media that portrayed him as a lion and Obama and his wife Michelle as apes.

According to CNN, which gained access to the Dropbox last week, another ad in the series features attacks on Joe Biden, including the mocking image of the former president as an auto-pen installed by Trump on an exterior wall of the White House.