Trump campaign files complaint to block Biden's campaign funds being transferred to Harris

WASHINGTON: The Trump campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing that money raised for US President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid could not be transferred to Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

The complaint was filed on Tuesday by the Trump campaign’s general counsel David Warrington and argues that transferring the funds to Harris's presidential campaign would amount to “flagrantly violating" the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.

On Sunday, President Biden announced that he was withdrawing from the race for the White House on November 5 and endorsed Harris amid mounting pressure from top Democrats and donors following his disastrous presidential debate against Trump in late June.

"Kamala Harris is seeking to perpetrate a USD 91.5 million dollar heist of Joe Biden’s leftover campaign cash — a brazen money grab that would constitute the single largest excessive contribution and biggest violation in the history of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended," Warrington said.

The Harris campaign dismissed it as baseless. In his complaint that was first reported by The New York Times, Warrington accused Biden and Harris of "flagrantly violating the Act by making and receiving an excessive contribution of nearly one hundred million dollars, and for filing fraudulent forms with the Commission purporting to repurpose one candidate’s principal campaign committee for the use of another candidate."

"Kamala Harris is in the process of committing the largest campaign finance violation in American history and she is using the Commission’s own forms to do it," Warrington said in his filing.

"The Commission must not and cannot sit idly by while one candidate takes nearly one hundred million dollars from the authorised committee of another, in violation of the Act and the will of the donors who gave the money in the first place," he wrote.

Warrington alleged that if "Kamala Harris were a candidate for something in 2024, federal law requires her to have filed a Statement of Candidacy and for her name to have appeared in the name of her authorised committee. But Kamala Harris’s name does not appear in the name of her purported authorised committee, ‘Biden for President,’ and, until Sunday, no Statement of Candidacy existed for her.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak responded to the FEC complaint in a statement on Tuesday, saying, “Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energised to defeat Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again 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.”

The statement also cited the campaign’s fundraising efforts so far, “raising USD 100 million in our first 36 hours and signing up 58,000 volunteers.”

It’s unlikely that the commission would take any action until well after Election Day, given its slow pace of resolving enforcement questions, CNN reported.

An FEC spokesperson declined to comment, citing the agency’s policy on not discussing enforcement matters, the report said.