Why Trump’s FEC complaint against Harris is a ‘long shot’ according to Honig

(CNN) — The Trump campaign on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing money raised for President Joe Biden’s reelection bid cannot be transferred to Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

The complaint was filed by the Trump campaign’s general counsel David Warrington and argues transferring the funds 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, a copy of which was obtained by CNN, states.

The complaint is against Biden, Harris, the Biden campaign (which is now the Harris campaign) and campaign treasurer Keana Spencer for allegedly “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.”

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak responded to the FEC complaint in a statement Tuesday, saying, “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.”

The statement also cited the campaign’s fundraising efforts so far, “raising $100 million in our first 36 hours and signing up 58,000 volunteers.”

It’s unlikely that the commission would take any action until well after Election Day, given its slow pace of resolving enforcement questions.

“I don’t think most campaign finance lawyers believe that this is a best reading of the law,” Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA’s law school, told CNN on Tuesday of the Trump campaign’s argument. But, he added, “that doesn’t mean it can’t get tied up in FEC proceedings for years.”

An FEC spokesperson declined to comment, citing the agency’s policy on not discussing enforcement matters.

Veteran Republican election lawyer Charlie Spies, who briefly served as the RNC’s general counsel earlier this year, argued recently that the Biden-Harris team must be formally nominated by their party before any money could be shifted.

“If President Biden is committed to passing the torch to his vice president, and wants to be able to seed her campaign with the current Biden for President campaign war chest, he’ll first have to become his party’s legal nominee,” Spies wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal before Biden’s exit from the race.

But other campaign finance experts disagree. And Federal Election Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum, a Democrat viewed as a swing vote on the evenly divided commission, has said Harris could access what Biden raised through the campaign committee because it is registered for both the president and vice president.

Lindenbaum wrote on X, “If Kamala Harris becomes the Democratic Party nominee, she gets access to the Joe Biden campaign funds.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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