A conservative group and several Republican state parties filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly taking control of Biden’s campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.
The complaint requests the FEC’s six-person commission, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, to “immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.”
Following President Joe Biden’s suspension of his reelection campaign and his endorsement of Harris as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, providing the vice president access to approximately $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.
Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak responded to the complaint, stating it had no merit. “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,” Lutvak said.
The FEC declined to comment on the matter.
Citizens United, the group instrumental in reversing campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, joined the complaint alongside one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties. These state GOP parties include Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming.
The Harris campaign reported raising $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, to Monday evening. These campaign records will be publicly available in mid-October when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.
The Trump campaign filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, as reported by CNN.
Sean Cooksey, the chair of the FEC and a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, suggested on social media that Harris might not have access to the funds, citing a regulation. “If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated …, or reattributed …, as appropriate,” he wrote.
Given Harris’s role as vice president, her name was associated with Biden’s presidential campaign committee. However, the resolution of any complaint is unlikely before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
