The presidential campaign for GOP nominee Donald Trump has formally filed a complaint about money being transferred from President Joe Biden’s now-defunct campaign to presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Bloomberg News reported this week that the complaint was filed with the Federal Election Commission. It claims that the $96 million that Biden’s campaign transferred to the account of Harris’ campaign constitutes a violation of campaign finance laws.
David Warrington, who works as an attorney for the Trump campaign, argues in the complaint that the transfer is “a brazen money grab that would constitute the single largest excessive contribution and biggest violation in the history of the Federal Election Campaign Act.”
One of the Harris campaign’s spokesmen, Charles Kretchmer Lutvak, fired back, telling Bloomberg News that these “baseless legal claims” only would serve to be a distraction for Republicans as they seek to take down their Democratic opponents come November.
As he said:
“Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims — like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections — will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters and win this election.”
When Biden announced on Sunday that he would be stepping aside from the presidential election, he essentially anointed Harris, his vice president, as his replacement atop the Democratic ticket.
While nothing is official just yet, Harris has secure enough delegates — and support from Democrats across the board — that it’s a foregone conclusion that she’ll ultimately be named the party’s candidate, perhaps as early as two weeks from now.
CNN reported that the Biden-Harris campaign on Sunday said it was changing FEC filings to “rename its principal committee.” In the process of doing that, Harris was officially named as the campaign’s presidential candidate.
The Campaign Legal Center’s president, Trevor Potter, issued a statement that explained the “Democratic Party rules in place” about how a “new nominee” gets selected, as well as what the FEC rules are about the funds that the Biden-Harris campaign had.
As he said:
“There are Democratic Party rules in place to govern the process of selecting a new nominee. There are also rules established by the Federal Election Commission that apply to the funds currently held by the Biden-Harris campaign.
“The application of those FEC rules depends in part on who becomes the Democratic nominee for president. Specifically, because Biden and Harris share a campaign committee, the Vice President and her running mate can continue using the campaign’s existing funds for the general election if she is on the Democratic ticket as either the presidential or vice-presidential nominee.”
In simple terms, this means that the Trump campaign’s lawsuit should ultimately fail, at least if Potter’s explanation of the FEC rules is accurate.
The new Harris-led campaign said that it received $81 million in donations in the first 24 hours after Biden stepped aside, and that cam from more than 888,000 grassroots donors.
