'Brazen money grab': Trump team hits Harris camp with FEC complaint over Biden's war chest

24.07.2024 05:53

Raw Story

Former President Donald Trump's campaign reportedly filed a complaint Tuesday accusing President Joe Biden and his likely successor to the Democratic nomination Kamala Harris of violating campaign finance laws.

The complaint, filed with the Federal Election Commission, claims money raised by Biden's re-election campaign cannot be handed to Harris' campaign.

The Trump campaign’s general counsel David Warrington filed the complaint, CNN reported, citing a copy of the complaint. Warrington said the money transfer would amount to “little more than a thinly veiled $91.5 million excessive contribution from one presidential candidate to another.”

“Kamala Harris is seeking to perpetrate a $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,” the complaint said.

Biden, facing mounting questions and calls to drop out from powerful players in his own party, dropped out of the race over the weekend and endorsed his vice president to take over the ticket.

The complaint alleges that if Harris were a candidate for something this year, that federal law "requires her to have filed a Statement of Candidacy and for her name to have appeared in the name of her authorized committee."

However, Harris’s name "does not appear in the name of her purported authorized committee, ‘Biden for President,’ and, until Sunday, no Statement of Candidacy existed for her," the complaint said. "Then Sunday, rather than filing her own Statement of Candidacy, she merely altered Joe Biden’s to replace his name with hers."

The complaint said there is no mechanism under the act where one person can end another’s federal candidacy simply by amending the other’s "Form 2."

"Moreover, in that purported amended Form 2 Harris designated ‘Biden for President’ as her principal campaign committee and then renamed it. Altering a document submitted to a federal agency is a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1519.3," the complaint said.

The Harris campaign told Fox News Digital the complaint was "baseless."

"Team Harris will continue to build on our more than 250 coordinated offices and more than 1,300 coordinated staffers across the battleground states – just like we built on the $240 million cash on hand that we had at launch this week, raising $100 million in our first 36 hours and signing up 58,000 volunteers," the statement read.

"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."