Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging the transfer of funds from Biden’s re-election campaign to Harris’s presidential campaign as a violation of campaign finance rules. The complaint was filed against President Biden, Vice President Harris, the Biden campaign and campaign treasurer Keana Spencer.
“Kamala Harris is seeking to commit $91.5 million dollars to the remaining campaign funds of Joe Biden – a seizure of money that would be an enormous contribution and the largest violation in the history of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended. “Act”).”
The general counsel of the Trump campaign, David Warrington accused him of “filing a fraudulent form with the Commission that intends to reuse the main campaign committee of one candidate to use another candidate,” Harris said that he only replaced Biden’s name with his instead of filing his own statement. of Candidacy.
“There is no provision in the federal campaign finance law for Kamala Harris to take over the candidacy of Joe Biden now by actually trying to be him through the amendment of Form 2, assuming control of the campaign by amending Form 1, and eliminating all of his money,” wrote Warrington.
However, the claim is expected to face strong pushback from the Harris campaign, because when the campaign was initially registered with the FEC, it was called the “main campaign committee” for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. At least one FEC commissioner has said he agrees that if Harris is the nominee he will have legal access to campaign funds.
The Harris campaign said Tuesday it had signed on more than $100 million in new donations between Sunday evening and Monday evening, after Mr. Biden ending his bid for re-election and support him. That amount includes money raised by the Harris campaign, the Democratic National Committee and joint fundraising committees.
In Warrington’s complaint, he also accused Mr. Biden’s campaign of making excessive contributions to Harris, saying, “This is far less than the $91.5 million in thinly veiled donations from one presidential candidate to another, that is, from the Joe Biden campaign that old for new Campaign Kamala Harris this effort makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws.
“Contributions by federal candidate committees to other federal candidates are limited to only $2,000. However, Biden for President sought to make an enormous contribution of more than $91 million dollars – more than 45,000 times the legal limit.”
In addition, the Trump campaign stated that since Mr. Biden dropped out of the race before transferring the funds to Harris, he was not prohibited from keeping the donations.
As a remedy, the campaign called on the FEC to “immediately open an enforcement matter, pursue this unprecedented illegal transfer, assess civil penalties commensurate with the scale and magnitude of this outrageous violation, and refer this matter to the Department of Justice for prosecution as a violation of the law.” knowing and deliberate federal.”
Finally, the campaign asserted that, “Kamala Harris is committing the biggest campaign finance violation in American history and she used her own Commission form to do it. One hundred million dollars from another legitimate committee, violating the Law and the will of the donors who gave the money in the first place , the Commission must immediately find reason to believe and quickly put an end to this ongoing violation.
Trump’s campaign moves come as his allies do floated the possibility of a court challenge to try to keep Mr. Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, even though he has ended his campaign. But election law experts believe it’s unlikely the court fight to block Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid will gain traction in federal court.
-Ed O’Keefe contributed reporting.
