Donald Trump’s campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday arguing that funds raised for Joe Biden’s re-election campaign cannot legally be transferred to Kamala Harris.
The complaint filed by David Warrington, the Trump campaign’s general counsel, comes after the president dropped out of the race Sunday and endorsed his vice president to become the Democratic nominee. Harris moved fast to get her election bid up and running, taking control of Biden’s campaign accounts and claiming to already have the support of enough delegates to seal the nomination.
“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,” Warrington wrote in the FEC complaint, according to The New York Times.
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The complaint accuses Harris, Biden, and the Harris campaign (formerly known as the Biden campaign) treasurer 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.”
It’s not clear when the FEC will address the matter, but Warrington encouraged the agency to do so quickly because, in his view, 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.”
Campaign finance experts do not universally agree on whether Harris can take over funds raised for Biden. Charlie Spies, a former counsel to the FEC, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this month that Biden would have to first become “his party’s legal nominee” before the cash could be transferred; Biden dropped out before being confirmed as the nominee at the Democratic National Convention.
FEC Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum, however, posted Sunday on X agreeing with a view that Harris can access the funds as long as she becomes the nominee because the campaign committee registered for her as well as Biden.
Replying to the Trump campaign complaint, a Harris campaign spokesperson highlighted the astonishing fundraising that the vice president’s campaign has achieved since Biden backed her over the weekend.
“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,” Charles Lutvak told the Times.
