{"id":2308575,"date":"2024-07-25T22:09:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T02:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dem-reasonable-observer-might-infer-law-bars-vp-fund-switch\/"},"modified":"2024-07-25T22:11:38","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T02:11:38","slug":"dem-reasonable-observer-could-conclude-law-prevents-vp-fund-switch-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dem-reasonable-observer-could-conclude-law-prevents-vp-fund-switch-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Dem: &#8216;Reasonable Observer&#8217; Could Conclude Law Prevents VP Fund Switch"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdem-reasonable-observer-could-conclude-law-prevents-vp-fund-switch-15%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2308575&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A Democratic congressman, Rep. Joseph Morelle, expressed concerns about a recent statement from Federal Election\u200c Commission (FEC) Chairman Sean Cooksey regarding the legality of President Biden transferring $91.5 million in campaign funds to Vice President Kamala Harris after Biden&#8217;s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. Cooksey&#8217;s reference to a federal campaign\u2062 finance statute raised questions about whether Harris is entitled to those funds, as the law suggests contributions for a general election \u2064must be returned if the candidate is not \u200dparticipating. <\/p>\n<p>The Trump campaign has filed \u200da complaint with the\u200c FEC, arguing that the\u200b transfer violates\u2062 campaign finance laws, as Harris has not yet been officially nominated as the Democratic candidate. Cooksey acknowledged the complexity and\u2062 unprecedented nature of the situation, indicating\u200c there could be legal challenges ahead. In response to Morelle&#8217;s criticism of his\u200c comments, Cooksey\u200c stated he merely \u2063quoted federal regulations and questioned why Democrats\u2063 seem\u200c to fear the law.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A Democrat congressman acknowledged Tuesday that a &ldquo;reasonable observer could interpret&rdquo; a campaign finance statute posted by FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey &ldquo;to imply that Vice President Harris may not be entitled&rdquo; to President Biden&rsquo;s war chest.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Cooksey <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SeanJCooksey\/status\/1815089842365321563\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">posted<\/a> language from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecfr.gov\/current\/title-11\/chapter-I\/subchapter-A\/part-110\/section-110.1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">federal statute<\/a> that reads, &ldquo;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 &hellip; or reattributed in accordance&rdquo; with existing statutes &ldquo;as appropriate.&rdquo; Following President Joe Biden&rsquo;s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, the Biden campaign recently transferred $91.5 million in campaign funds to his vice president, Kamala Harris. Biden&rsquo;s team &ldquo;renamed three of its fundraising entities&rdquo; and&nbsp;&ldquo;plac[ed] them in Harris&rsquo;s name,&rdquo; according to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/elections\/trump-campaign-files-complaint-to-block-biden-transferring-war-chest-to-harris-92ea2419\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In a Tuesday <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SeanJCooksey\/status\/1815819368896307638\/photo\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">letter<\/a> to the FEC, New York Rep. Joseph Morelle admitted that &ldquo;a reasonable observer could interpret [Cooksey&rsquo;s] post&rdquo; &mdash; which was simply a verbatim quote from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dem-reasonable-observer-could-conclude-law-prevents-vp-fund-switch-2\/\" title=\"Dem: &#039;Reasonable Observer&#039; Could Conclude Law Prevents VP Fund Switch\">federal campaign finance statute &#038;mdash<\/a>; &ldquo;to imply that Vice President Harris may not be entitled to the finances from a campaign for which she has been a named candidate for almost four years.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Morelle worried that Cooksey&rsquo;s &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dem-reasonable-observer-could-conclude-law-prevents-vp-fund-switch\/\" title=\"Dem: &#039;Reasonable Observer&#039; Could Conclude Law Prevents VP Fund Switch\">recent social media activity&#038;rdquo<\/a>; might &ldquo;sow misguided doubt and confusion about the state of the presidential election and the Commission&rsquo;s partiality.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Trump campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Tuesday challenging the transfer of funds and reportedly calling it &ldquo;the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/facebook-hit-with-822-election-campaign-finance-violations-largest-fine-in-us-history\/\" title=\"Facebook Hit With 822 Election Campaign Finance Violations: &quot;Largest Fine in US History&quot;\">largest campaign finance violation<\/a> in American history.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In the complaint, Trump campaign General Counsel David Warrington reportedly contended that the $91.5 million in campaign funds originally raised by Biden&rsquo;s presidential campaign cannot be transferred to Harris, who has yet to be named the official Democrat nominee.<\/p>\n<p>Biden and Harris are &ldquo;flagrantly violating the[[<a href=\"https:\/\/uscode.house.gov\/view.xhtml?path=\/prelim@title52\/subtitle3\/chapter301&amp;edition=prelim\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971<\/a>, as amended]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&rsquo;s principal campaign committee for the use of another candidate,&rdquo; Warrington reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2024\/07\/24\/us\/harris-trump-biden-election\/trump-campaign-files-complaint-over-transfer-of-biden-funds-to-harris?smid=url-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote<\/a> in the complaint.<\/p>\n<p>Some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/elections\/trump-campaign-files-complaint-to-block-biden-transferring-war-chest-to-harris-92ea2419\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">contend<\/a> that this unprecedented transfer of tens of millions of dollars is legally fine because Harris&rsquo; name was listed on the original Biden-Harris campaign committee, Cooksey has said the situation is &ldquo;really complicated,&rdquo; noting the &ldquo;unprecedented&rdquo; nature of the situation in a Monday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2024\/07\/22\/nx-s1-5048037\/biden-dropped-his-reelection-plans-what-happens-to-his-campaign-war-chest\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NPR interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We have a presidential nominee or a presumptive nominee dropping out just weeks before his party convention. And he&rsquo;s &ndash; what he&rsquo;s attempting to do is to give his entire committee, the cash and all the assets &hellip; [o]ver to another person,&rdquo; Cooksey said. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s going to have to go through a process through the FEC. I think I expect there&rsquo;s going to be probably challenges to that at the agency and probably in the courts, as well.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Morelle, in addition to bashing the chairman&rsquo;s use of language from federal law, also wrote in the letter that Cooksey&rsquo;s comments on NPR &ldquo;seem[ed] to invite administrative challenges and litigation concerning this issue.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Cooksey <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SeanJCooksey\/status\/1815819368896307638\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">responded<\/a> to Morelle on Tuesday afternoon, noting that &ldquo;All I did was quote federal regulations.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Why are Democrats afraid of the law?&rdquo; he asked.<\/p>\n<p>Morelle did not respond by the time of publication to The Federalist&rsquo;s request for comment on his observation that a &ldquo;reasonable observer could interpret&rdquo; the campaign finance statute posted by FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey &ldquo;to imply that Vice President Harris may not be entitled&rdquo; to Biden&rsquo;s campaign funds.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump campaign&rsquo;s complaint also reportedly challenged the fund transfer&rsquo;s legality by noting that Harris isn&rsquo;t the official Democrat nominee until she&rsquo;s been deemed as such during the Democratic National Convention next month. He also contended that, after the current president&rsquo;s withdrawal from the 2024 race, the Biden campaign is not &ldquo;in a position to keep the general-election contributions he has received,&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2024\/07\/24\/us\/harris-trump-biden-election\/trump-campaign-files-complaint-over-transfer-of-biden-funds-to-harris?smid=url-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according<\/a> to the New York Times.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;To date, Biden for President has provided no indication that it will return or redesignate all of its general election contributions,&rdquo; Warrington reportedly wrote. &ldquo;Thus, each and every general election contribution received by Biden for President is an excessive contribution.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Warrington also &ldquo;accused the campaign&rsquo;s treasurer and Ms. Harris of &lsquo;attempted fraud&rsquo; of the F.E.C. by using their forms to &lsquo;rename and repurpose&rsquo; the committee, seeking a Justice Department referral,&rdquo; according to The New York Times.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Democratic congressman admitted on Tuesday that a &#8220;reasonable observer could interpret&#8221; a campaign finance law shared by FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey as suggesting that Vice President Harris might not have a claim to President Biden&#8217;s campaign funds. Cooksey had posted a federal statute stating, &#8220;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&#8230; or reattributed in accordance&#8221; with existing laws. This comes after Biden&#8217;s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, leading his campaign to transfer $91.5 million in funds to Harris. According to The Wall Street Journal, Biden&#8217;s team &#8220;renamed three of its fundraising entities&#8221; to Harris&#8217;s name.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to the FEC, New York Representative Joseph Morelle acknowledged that &#8220;a reasonable observer could interpret [Cooksey\u2019s] post&#8221;\u2014which was a direct quote from the federal campaign finance law\u2014as implying that Harris may not be entitled to funds from a campaign where she has been a named candidate for nearly four years. Morelle expressed concern that Cooksey&#8217;s &#8220;recent social media activity&#8221; could create &#8220;misguided doubt and confusion&#8221; regarding the presidential election and the Commission&#8217;s impartiality.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump campaign filed a complaint with the FEC on Tuesday, challenging the fund transfer and labeling it &#8220;the largest campaign finance violation in American history.&#8221; Trump campaign General Counsel David Warrington argued that the $91.5 million raised by Biden&#8217;s campaign cannot be transferred to Harris, who has not yet been officially named the Democratic nominee. Warrington claimed that Biden and Harris are &#8220;flagrantly violating the [Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971, as amended]&#8221; by making an excessive contribution of nearly $100 million and for submitting fraudulent forms to the Commission to repurpose one candidate&#8217;s campaign committee for another&#8217;s use.<\/p>\n<p>Some argue that the transfer is legally permissible since Harris was listed on the original Biden-Harris campaign committee, but Cooksey has described the situation as &#8220;really complicated,&#8221; highlighting its &#8220;unprecedented&#8221; nature in a Monday NPR interview. He noted, &#8220;We have a presidential nominee or a presumptive nominee dropping out just weeks before his party convention&#8230; I think it\u2019s going to have to go through a process through the FEC, and I expect there will be challenges both at the agency and likely in the courts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Morelle criticized Cooksey&#8217;s use of federal law language and suggested that his comments on NPR &#8220;seem[ed] to invite administrative challenges and litigation&#8221; on this matter. Cooksey responded to Morelle, stating, &#8220;All I did was quote federal regulations,&#8221; and questioned, &#8220;Why are Democrats afraid of the law?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As of the publication of this article, Morelle had not responded to The Federalist&#8217;s request for comment regarding his observation that a &#8220;reasonable observer could interpret&#8221; Cooksey&#8217;s campaign finance statute to imply that Harris may not be entitled to Biden&#8217;s campaign funds. The Trump campaign&#8217;s complaint also argued that the fund transfer&#8217;s legality is questionable since Harris will not be the official Democratic nominee until the Democratic National Convention next month. Warrington noted that after Biden&#8217;s withdrawal from the 2024 race, the Biden campaign is not &#8220;in a position to keep the general-election contributions he has received.&#8221; He stated, &#8220;To date, Biden for President has provided no indication that it will return or redesignate all of its general election contributions,&#8221; asserting that every general election contribution received by Biden&#8217;s campaign is an excessive contribution. Warrington also accused the campaign&#8217;s treasurer and Harris of &#8220;attempted fraud&#8221; against the FEC by trying to &#8220;rename and repurpose&#8221; the committee, seeking a referral to the Justice Department<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":2308576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Kamala_harris_white.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4912,6547,36218,36216,36217],"class_list":["post-2308575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-democrat","tag-law","tag-legal-analysis","tag-reasonable-observer","tag-vp-fund-switch"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Kamala_harris_white.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2308575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2308576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2308575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2308575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2308575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}