Brian Fitzpatrick Corruption & Ethics Pennsylvania

Brian Fitzpatrick's Attack Ads Quote 'News' Headlines. A Longtime Ally His Campaign Has Paid, and a Guest at His Wedding, Wrote Every One of Them.

Eight Fitzpatrick campaign ads cite Patch headlines attacking Democrat Bob Harvie. Every one was self-published by Dave Sommers, a Fitzpatrick ally who attended his June wedding, was paid by his campaign, and served a federal sentence for trafficking protected turtles.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 01, 2026

Brian Fitzpatrick's Attack Ads Quote 'News' Headlines. A Longtime Ally His Campaign Has Paid, and a Guest at His Wedding, Wrote Every One of Them. — Photo: official congressional portrait

Brian Fitzpatrick is facing the toughest race of his career against Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie, and he has answered with an ad blitz across southeast Pennsylvania. Many of those ads quote what look like independent local news headlines.

"Bob Harvie calls himself a king," reads one quoted in a June TV spot. "Bob Harvie has his FBI files but refuses to release them," reads another in a September digital ad.

Politico traced the headlines to their source. Those two ads and six others all cite articles on Patch, a local news site that also lets anyone with an account post unedited "articles." Every one of the cited articles carries the byline of the same man: Dave Sommers, of Levittown, Pennsylvania.

Sommers is not an independent local reporter. He is a longtime Fitzpatrick ally.

Who Dave Sommers is

Fitzpatrick family campaigns have paid him. Politico calls it "sporadic payments and reimbursements." Federal Election Commission records show Brian Fitzpatrick's campaign paid Sommers $500 for "office setup services" in April 2022, and made payments to him in 2016. The campaign of his late brother, former Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, reimbursed Sommers for mileage, printing and supplies going back to 2010.
He went to Fitzpatrick's wedding. Sommers attended the congressman's June wedding, according to multiple social media posts Politico reviewed. Fitzpatrick's own Facebook page shows Sommers next to him at a March 2025 St. Patrick's Day parade, and Sommers has posted a photo of himself in a "Team Fitz" tank top.
He served a federal sentence for wildlife trafficking. In 2019, Sommers was sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay $250,000 for trafficking protected diamondback terrapins, which he sold online after mislabeling the packages. Prosecutors said he made more than $500,000 over six years, and he also got six months of house arrest, Politico reported.
He was charged in 2022 with stealing a campaign sign that supported Fitzpatrick's Republican primary challenger, Alex Entin, according to a local news report Politico cited.

Since late February, Sommers has posted eight articles on Patch. All eight attack Harvie, calling him "divisive," "arrogant" and a "hack." They track the Fitzpatrick campaign's own messaging, Politico found, including an August 27 post accusing Harvie of wanting "more data centers in Bucks County."

Then the Fitzpatrick campaign quotes those posts in ads, as if they were news coverage.

What the ads claim

The most damaging line, that Harvie "has his FBI files but refuses to release them," implies Harvie was the target of an FBI investigation. Harvie has repeatedly denied that he was. What local reporting shows is that he testified before a federal grand jury, along with other officials, in September 2022 as part of an apparent public corruption probe.

Harvie sent Fitzpatrick a cease-and-desist letter in July claiming the campaign's ads were defamatory, and in August he sued a pro-Fitzpatrick super PAC, Defending America PAC, over its ads.

Neither Sommers nor Fitzpatrick's campaign responded to Politico's repeated requests for comment. The House Republican campaign arm attacked Harvie's own ads instead.

A brand built on being different

Harvie's response went straight at Fitzpatrick's brand: "Brian Fitzpatrick is worse than the rest of the Washington swamp because he pretends to be different." Politico noted that campaigns around the country have drawn scrutiny for leaning on articles from partisan sources, "but rarely are they citing sources that have such direct ties to the candidate."

It isn't the first time his brand has outrun his record. We've reported that he's announced one open town hall since 2017, and that he wrote an ICE reform bill, then voted to fund ICE for three more years without it.

What the record shows

At least eight Brian Fitzpatrick campaign ads quote Patch headlines attacking Bob Harvie, and every one of those articles was self-published by Dave Sommers, a Fitzpatrick ally his campaign paid in 2022 who attended Fitzpatrick's June wedding and served a 2019 federal sentence for trafficking protected turtles. The ads present his posts as if they were independent news.