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Donald Trump’s campaign has accused vice president Kamala Harris of committing a “heist” and a “brazen money grab” after she inherited President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign war chest.
Trump’s complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday accuses the president and vice president of running afoul of campaign finance laws by turning Biden’s now-ended campaign into the “Harris for President” campaign, allowing Harris to tap into more than $91 million in the campaign’s coffers.
After Biden ended his re-election campaign on Sunday, Biden notified the FEC that his committee was changing its name to Harris for President, with Harris as the beneficiary. But as Biden’s running mate, Harris was already sharing the campaign committee with the president, and legal analysts have doubted the arguments at the heart of Trump’s attempt to take the wind out of his rival’s sails.
The Trump campaign’s legal team is now accusing Harris of “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,” according to the complaint, which has been reviewed by The Independent.
“This is little more than a thinly veiled $91.5 million excessive contribution from one presidential candidate to another, that is, from Joe Biden’s old campaign to Kamala Harris’s new campaign,” reads the complaint, written by Trump campaign general counsel David Worrington.
“This effort makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws,” he added.
The complaint was first reported by The New York Times.
“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,” Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to The Independent.
“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,” he added.
Campaign finance analysts have doubted the legal theory propelling Trump-allied challenges to Harris’s campaign. The committees that have raised funds for Biden’s re-election — Biden for President, Biden Victory Fund and Biden Action Fund — all have included Harris. The committees remain the same, just with different names.
But right-wing legal groups have been eager to slow down any Democratic momentum now that Biden is no longer in the race.
“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,” according to Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center.
Among the arguments in the complaint, Trump’s counsel argues Harris is not in a position to inherit contributions because she is not yet officially the Democratic Party’s nominee, and that the campaign’s treasurer “attempted fraud” by using government documents to “rename and repurpose” Biden’s committee.
Moments after Biden announced he was ending his re-election campaign, Trump-appointed FEC chair Sean Cooksey posted an excerpt of campaign finance law that requires contributions to a candidate for the general election be refunded or redesignated if that candidate doesn’t run.
A group of House Democrats sent him a letter on Tuesday to clarify campaign finance law, warning that his statements could risk fueling “uncertainty and mistrust” in the nation’s campaign finance system and “our democracy more generally.”
“All I did was quote federal regulations,” he wrote in response on X. “Why are Democrats afraid of the law?”
