Free Republic

The “unprecedented” nature of President Biden handing Vice President Kamala Harris the keys to his campaign war chest may prove “complicated” and spark legal challenges, the head of the Federal Election Commission warned Monday. “I think it’s really complicated, is the short answer,” Federal Election Commission Chairman Sean Cooksey – an appointee of former President Donald Trump – told NPR when asked about the vice president’s ability to access the Biden campaign’s substantial assets. “I mean, we take a step back to consider the situation – this is really unprecedented in terms of modern political history, and certainly in terms...

The Biden-Harris campaign took little time to officially drop President Biden from its namesake Sunday, filing paperwork kicking the president off the ticket just hours after the 81-year-old went public with his political-earthquake of a decision to withdraw from the 2024 race. In a filing with the Federal Election Commission, the campaign asked to rename itself to “Harris for President” and designated the Harris Victory Fund and the Harris Action Fund as its joint fundraising committees. “Vice President Harris is now a candidate for United States President in the 2024 election and will henceforth be conducting campaign activities only in...

he Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign and an affiliated super PAC violated federal election law in spending that totaled close to $6 million. The amount in question is more than 45 times the $130,000 a Manhattan court convicted former President Donald Trump of misreporting in business records during the same 2016 campaign. It should be noted that the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department looked at the payments Trump made through his personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, to adult film star Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure...

A federal appeals court today said Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and a liberal super PAC crossed federal election lines when they flaunted their coordination in a multimillion-dollar effort to defend the Democrat in her losing bid against Donald Trump. In the landmark decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Clinton and the super PAC Correct the Record improperly used an “internet exemption” to sidestep other restrictions to set up a “Benghazi Hearing War Room” and conduct a witch hunt of critics without reporting it as a campaign expense. Neither Clinton nor Correct the Record...

A member of the Federal Election Commission testified to Congress on Thursday that the Manhattan district attorney who led the prosecution of former President Donald Trump overstepped his authority. Trey Trainor, a Trump-appointed commissioner who once served as FEC chairman, said during a hearing that District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, inappropriately incorporated a federal election campaign law into his charges against Trump.“Bragg has effectively usurped the jurisdiction that this Congress has explicitly reserved for federal authorities,” Trainor said during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. “This overreach sets a troubling precedent for politicization of legal proceedings at the state...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) filed a formal administrative complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against New York County District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. and Joe Biden’s principal campaign committee, Biden for President, for violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act. In December 2022, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg reportedly hired Matthew B. Colangelo to “jump-start” his office’s investigation of President Trump due to Mr. Colangelo’s “history of taking on Donald J. Trump and his family business.” Colangelo left his post as the number three in the DOJ to join the district attorney’s office –...

Former Commissioner of the Federal Elections Commission, Brad Smith, a preeminent expert on campaign finance law has taken to social media to lash out against the Manhattan trial that led to the conviction of former President Donald Trump. Judge Juan Merchan had prevented Trump’s defense team from seating Smith as a witness or even submitting his testimony to the jury. Smith had planned on testifying that Donald Trump’s filing of a “hush money” payment as a “legal expense” was not a crime against federal elections law. Indeed, federal prosecutors had passed up on the case prior to Alvin Bragg, the...

Paul Sperry @paulsperry_ BREAKING: FEC vendor records reveal Judge Merchan's daughter raked in $9.7 mil from Biden+Kamala during their 2020 campaigns for prez, raising fresh conflict issues.

An under-the-radar change at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) could allow 'unlimited' foreign money to flow into elections, election experts have warned. The FEC issued an advisory opinion earlier this month that allows federal candidates for office to solicit unlimited funds from anywhere for groups working for state ballot initiatives. That means if President Joe Biden is raising money for a state referendum on abortion, there are no limits to the donations he can request. If Donald Trump is raising money for a group to oppose such a referendum, the same would go for his campaign.

I've received two cell phone calls in the past few days and both were labelled "Likely Scam" in red letters. The number was not shown so I didn't consider answering it. On the second such call curiosity got to me and I decided to answer. It was the RNC soliciting donations. I hung up and then went to the previous "scam" call and that was from the National Republican Congressional Committee. the numbers were 771-202-xxxx and 771-213-xxxx. They've been doing something similar with email from Republican entities. The Trump Campaign, RNC, NRCC, and the FEC need to be alerted, although...

WHEN THE JUDGE GAGS A KEY WITNESS FOR TRUMP’S DEFENSE. The false bookkeeping trial of former President Donald Trump is now in its fourth week. This newsletter has pointed out lots of times, most recently last Friday, that while we know that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with falsifying bookkeeping records of a nondisclosure payment in order to commit or conceal another crime, Bragg still hasn’t revealed what that other crime is. It’s really the key to the whole case. Without the other crime, there would be no charges against Trump in this matter. The fact that...

Adult film star Stormy Daniels says she signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for which she was paid $130,000 "because I was terrified I could be killed if I didn't. Other people who knew things about politicians have ended up dead. Both Seth Rich and Vince Foster were shot under mysterious circumstances." Daniels is slated to testify in Trump's election interference trial before Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Bragg alleges that voters in 2016 we defrauded when NDAs Trump negotiated to avoid public embarrassment "were essential information needed to assess Trump's fitness for office." Despite the fact that NDAs are legal...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, America First Legal (AFL) sued the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for refusing to charge Biden For President, the Biden Victory Fund, the Biden Action Fund, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) after they failed to report direct and indirect contributions and coordinated communications made in connection with the infamous and debunked “Letter of 51” to the FEC. On October 19, 2020, 51 anti-Trump former intelligence officials issued a public statement decrying reports of a Hunter Biden laptop that contained debilitating information about presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son as “Russian disinformation.” As AFL reveals in...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is accused of receiving an illegal contribution from the super PAC working to get him elected president, according to a Federal Election Commission complaint filed by the Democratic National Committee.Mr. Kennedy’s campaign is “in the process of accepting a $15 million unlawful in-kind contribution by coordinating their efforts to get him on the ballot,” DNC legal counsel Bob Lenhard said in a Feb. 9 call detailing the FEC complaint.Mr. Kennedy’s campaign “has acknowledged that it is time-consuming and expensive for a first-time candidate to get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states. Rather than...

Asked for his thoughts about the resignation of Jeff Roe from Never Back Down over the weekend, DeSantis told reporters, “I’m not involved in any of that.” “As you guys know, it’s a separate entity and so it’s just … this stuff just happens, and it’s not in my purview of what’s out there,” DeSantis continued. He later added, “It’s not a distraction for me … I know media may want to do it but at the end of the day, I’m focused on the mission.” Roe’s resignation from Never Back Down came hours after a Washington Post report shared...

Jeff Roe, longtime Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) consultant and chief architect of his flailing political operation, resigned Saturday from the super PAC charged with realizing the governor’s increasingly quixotic presidential aspirations. Roe announced his departure hours after a damning Washington Post report on the collapse of Never Back Down (NBD), the super PAC Roe conceptualized to send DeSantis to the White House and usher in a new era of super PAC-driven presidential campaigns. The Post report comes after five senior officials, pre-dating Roe’s departure, left NBD since late November and three others with Roe’s firm were fired. The Post writes...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broke campaign finance law by communicating about TV spending decisions with a big-dollar super PAC that is supporting his Republican bid for the White House, a nonpartisan government watchdog group alleged in a complaint filed Monday. The Campaign Legal Center cited recent reporting by The Associated Press and others in the complaint, which was filed with the Federal Election Commission. It alleges that the degree of coordination and communication between DeSantis’ campaign and Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting him, crossed a legal line set in place when the Supreme Court first opened the door...

Concerns regarding the DeSantis campaign’s coordination with the pro-DeSantis Super PAC Never Back Down–which has come under scrutiny in recent months as DeSantis fails to make a dent in former President Donald Trump’s lead in the Republican primary race–are increasing.There have been reports of infighting within Never Back Down and tensions between the PAC, which has spent $43 million on ads this year, and the campaign as DeSantis has failed to make any dent at all in Trump’s lead since the governor’s May launch.A September post in Vanity Fair details how Never Back Down’s chief Jeff Roe and the DeSantis...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will meet this week with high-dollar Republicans to try to cement their support for the newest political action committee supporting his presidential bid, his campaign manager, James Uthmeier, wrote in a memo on Monday morning. Back Down, the super PAC which has bankrolled much of DeSantis' sprawling ground work in early voting states like Iowa and has hosted the governor for dozens of events there. In a fraught moment earlier this month that was first reported by NBC News, two board members from Never Back Down nearly got into a physical fight during a private meeting...

An alleged campaign finance violation could ensnare Secretary of State Antony Blinken and 51 former senior intelligence officials who asserted without evidence in 2020 that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. America First Legal, a conservative organization run by former Donald Trump White House aide Stephen Miller, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in late October, alleging a "coordinated communication" and an unreported in-kind contribution to the Joe Biden presidential campaign and related entities, in violation of federal law. "[The] evidence suggests that the respondents failed to disclose coordinated expenditures constituting in-kind donations with respect to the...