Long-shot challenge to put Biden poll funds out of bounds

The challenge with the Federal Election Commission says Harris took over the money ‘fraudulently’.

Donald Trump’s FEC challenge is unlikely to affect Kamala Harris’s campaign spending through November. Picture: AFP

The Trump campaign filed a long-shot challenge to block Vice-President Kamala Harris from campaign funds in what used to be the joint Biden-Harris war chest, in a complaint filed on Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission.

Former president Donald Trump’s campaign claims Ms Harris fraudulently grabbed funds contributed to a different candidate in the launch of her own presidential campaign, according to a letter to the commission viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

“Until Sunday, while Joe Biden had previously stated his intention to place Kamala Harris’s name in nomination to be his running mate, Kamala Harris was not actually a candidate for anything,” wrote Trump lawyer David A. Warrington. “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.”

FEC commissioners and election finance lawyers have spent the past two days arguing over the legitimacy of the handover. Either way, it’s unlikely the Trump campaign’s challenge will affect Ms Harris’ spending through to election day in November.

Ms Harris’s team denied any wrongdoing. “Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energised 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,” said Harris campaign spokesman Charles Kretchmer Lutvak.

Just hours after President Joe Biden withdrew from the re-election campaign on Sunday he renamed three of its fundraising entities, placing them in Ms Harris’s name. Those three – a campaign committee now called Harris for President and two joint fundraising committees – had more than $US159m ($241m) in cash at the end of June, according to FEC filings.

The Harris campaign reported on Tuesday she had raised another $US100m in less than 36 hours.

The Biden-Harris campaign committee had both names on it from the beginning of this cycle, meaning funds donated for the primary could be used by either name on the joint ticket, said lawyer Kenneth Gross, a former associate general counsel in the FEC’s enforcement division.

“It’s her money,” he said. “She was on the original statement of candidacy as a candidate when the committee was registered. It doesn’t matter that she was the VP candidate in the primary process and votes were for Biden.”

Joint committees are relatively common when an incumbent duo is running again, and sometimes a vice-president nominee will be added after a convention, he said.

The Trump campaign’s challenge argues Mr Biden should be bound by limits on campaign contributions to other candidates. “Ms Harris has no more right to the funds raised by Mr Biden than any other potential candidate who may challenge her for the nomination,” Mr Warrington wrote.

The next steps of the FEC investigation will be confidential and circuitous. The Harris campaign will have a chance to respond to the challenge before six commissioners – lately deadlocked by a partisan split – decide whether to take up the challenge and investigate the spending or dismiss it.

No funds are frozen in the meantime, meaning Ms Harris can continue spending for now.

The Wall Street Journal