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'This Isn't It': FEC Chair Refuses Firing Attempt by Trump, Calling It Illegal
"I've been lucky to serve the American people and stir up some good trouble along the way. That's not changing anytime soon," Commissioner Ellen Weintraub wrote.
Feb 07, 2025
Federal Elections Commission Commissioner and Chair Ellen Weintraub said Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump moved to fire her from the commission, but indicated she won't comply and called the directive legally invalid.
Weintraub shared a letter on X that read: "You are hereby removed as a member of the Federal Election Commission, effective immediately. Thank you for your service on the Commission," and appears to have Trump's signature below it. The letter is dated January 31, but in her accompanying post Weintraub said that she received the letter on Thursday.
"There's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners—this isn't it. I've been lucky to serve the American people and stir up some good trouble along the way. That's not changing anytime soon," wrote Weintraub, who has served as a commissioner at the independent regulatory agency that enforces federal campaign finance law since 2002. She was elected to chair the commission for 2025.
The FEC is headed by six commissioners and the body must have at least four in order to have a quorum. FEC commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and the Federal Election Campaign Act establishes six-year terms for commission members. However, commissioners can continue in their positions after those terms end in "holdover" status until the president nominates and the Senate confirms a replacement commissioner, according to the Congressional Research Service.
This is the case with Weintraub, who's term expired in 2007, and has remained on since in holdover status. Weintraub has also been the chief strategist behind a maneuver from the Democratic commissioners to force more deadlock on the commission in order to compel federal courts to step in and police federal election law, according to The New York Times.
"In the entire history of the bipartisan FEC no president has ever removed a commissioner from the opposing party without nominating a successor recommended by that party's leaders in Congress," wrote Daniel Weiner, the director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center policy institute. "This is an extraordinary break from that history, and there are strong arguments that it violates long-established federal law governing independent agencies."
Trevor Potter, Republican former chair of the FEC and the current president of Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement Thursday that Congress intentionally did not grant the president powers to remove FEC commissioners.
"With multiple FEC commissioners serving on expired terms and one vacant seat, Trump is free to nominate multiple new commissioners and to allow Congress to perform its constitutional role of advice and consent," he wrote.
He added: "It's contrary to law that he has instead opted to claim to 'fire' a single Democratic commissioner who has been an outspoken critic of the president's lawbreaking and of the FEC's failure to hold him accountable."
In 2020, Weintraub authored a long social media thread aimed at debunking some of Trump's claims around alleged vote-by-mail voter fraud.
Weintraub also toldThe New York Times that she thinks her public statements regarding FEC complaints focused on Trump's presidential campaigns may be why she's in the president's crosshairs.
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Crypto Billionaire Trump Already 'Cashing In On the Presidency' With Meme Coin
"We now have a president-elect who, the weekend before inauguration, is launching new businesses along with promises to deregulate... those sectors in a way to just blatantly profit off his own presidency."
Jan 19, 2025
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump faced a flood of criticism throughout the weekend for launching a cryptocurrency token as the world prepared for his Monday inauguration and policies expected to benefit the industry that helped Republicans take control of the White House and Congress.
"It is literally cashing in on the presidency—creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president's family in connection with his office," Campaign Legal Center executive director Adav Noti toldThe New York Times. "It is beyond unprecedented."
Jordan Libowitz, vice president for communications at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also contrasted Trump's move with behaviors of past presidents, tellingPolitico, "It is absolutely wild."
"After decades of seeing presidents-elect spend the time leading up to inauguration separating themselves from their finances to show that they don't have any conflicts of interest, we now have a president-elect who, the weekend before inauguration, is launching new businesses along with promises to deregulate... those sectors in a way to just blatantly profit off his own presidency," said Libowitz.
The president-elected announced the $TRUMP meme coin, hosted on the Solana blockchain, via his Truth social media platform and X—owned by Elon Musk, his ally and the richest person on the planet—on Friday, declaring that "it's time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!"
He linked to a website that explains "there are 200 million $TRUMP available on day one and will grow to a total of 1 billion $TRUMP over three years." It also states that "Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol '$TRUMP' and the associated artwork, and are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type."
Forbesreported that "the remaining 80% of tokens that have yet to be publicly released are owned by the Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, a company formed in Delaware on January 7, according to state filings, and both companies will receive an undisclosed amount of revenue derived from trading activity."
The president-elect's son Eric Trump, who helps run Trump Organization, told the Times that "this is just the beginning."
"I am extremely proud of what we continue to accomplish in crypto," he said in a statement. "$TRUMP is currently the hottest digital meme on Earth."
In an article simply headlined, "Donald Trump, crypto billionaire," Axiosnoted that by Sunday morning, "Trump's crypto holdings were worth as much as $58 billion on paper, enough—with his other assets—to make him one of the world's 25 richest people."
Responding to Axios' report, Wa'el Alzayat, who served as a Middle East policy expert at the U.S. Department of State for a decade, said that "when I was in government I couldn't accept a lunch over $20. Now anyone can give our next president millions."
Predicting that "this is going to end VERY badly for everyone except Donald Trump and his cronies," journalist Jeff St. John said that "it is a scandal and an outrage."
The meme coin announcement came as "the elite of the crypto world" gathered in Washington, D.C. for the first-ever Crypto Ball.
The president-elect did not attend the event, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and the nominees for commerce and treasury secretary, Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent, were there. Reporting on the gala, Reuterspointed out that the Trump "courted crypto campaign cash with promises to be a 'crypto president,' and is expected next week to issue executive orders aimed at reducing crypto regulatory roadblocks and promoting widespread adoption of digital assets."
Trump is no stranger to ethics scandals. As Mother Jonesdetailed:
The meme coin is just the latest in a bizarre line of grifty, super-weird takes on "merch." Last February, Trump showed off gold "Never Surrender High-Tops" for $399 at Sneaker Con, which had Fox Newsapplauding his appeal to Black voters. In March, he began endorsing the $59.99 "God Bless the USA Bible," which includes the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and handwritten lyrics to the chorus of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA." (Trump's inaugural committee has confirmed that he will not be using one of these Bibles to swear the presidential oath of office on Monday.) In August, Trump released a new round of his "baseball card" NFTs.
S.V. Dáte, a senior White House correspondent at HuffPost, highlighted Sunday that during the Republican's first term, "Trump's D.C. hotel was a convenient way for foreign and domestic lobbyists to put cash directly into his pocket."
"This crypto thing is next level. Anyone on the planet can put money directly into his pocket. Huge," Dáte added. "The efficiency here is a thing of beauty. With a hotel, you have all the costs of owning the property as well as paying cleaning staff, front desk staff, and so on. This selling of fake money is almost pure profit."
The Trump Organization sold the D.C. hotel in 2022, but The Wall Street Journalreported earlier this month that his "real estate company is in talks to reclaim" the property.
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'Dark Omen': Supreme Court Allows Virginia Voter Purge Just Days Before Election
Although eligible voters can still participate thanks to same-day registration, critics called the decision "outrageous."
Oct 30, 2024
Democracy defenders responded with alarm on Wednesday to a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority allowing Virginia to resume its purge of state voter registration rolls while early voting is underway for next Tuesday's election.
Stand Up America managing director of policy and political affairs Brett Edkins framed the court's decision as a gift to former Republican President Donald Trump, who appointed half of the conservative justices and is facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 contest for the White House.
"This eleventh-hour move by the Roberts Court to allow Virginia to purge registered voters from the voter rolls is a troubling attempt by the Supreme Court's MAGA majority to come to Trump's aid just days before the election," Edkins said. "This last-minute purge will impact American citizens, including newly-eligible voters, and undermine our democracy and the freedom to vote."
"Americans deserve a nonpartisan Supreme Court that will stand up for our rights and protect the will of the people—the Roberts Court is not it," he continued. "We must turn out in record numbers to keep Trump out of the Oval Office and prevent him from appointing even more MAGA justices who put partisan interests over Americans' freedom to vote."
The high court's right-wing majority did not explain the reasoning behind Wednesday's decision, which came after a federal judge determined that Virginia illegally booted 1,600 people from the rolls and an appellate court agreed.
Liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, only saying they would deny the application from the administration of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who welcomed the high court's move.
Meanwhile, Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern explained that "the Supreme Court's decision is extremely worrisome because the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 *explicitly forbids* systematic purges of voter rolls shortly before an election. It now looks like the conservative supermajority will let states ignore that prohibition."
The Virginia program was purportedly intended to remove noncitizens—who already cannot legally vote—from the rolls.
CNNreported Wednesday that "Trump and other Republicans have seized on claims of illegal voting and that was part of the argument they made to explain the former president's loss in 2020. But documented cases of noncitizens voting are extremely rare. A recent Georgia audit of the 8.2 million people on its rolls found just 20 registered noncitizens—only nine of whom had voted."
In the case of Virginia, Stern noted, "we know this purge has targeted qualified citizens."
The Campaign Legal Center represented state groups that challenged the program. In a series of social media posts, Danielle Lang, the organization's senior director for voting rights, said that "many of the Virginia voters who have been kicked off the rolls are eligible citizens. These are eligible Virginians who deserve to have their voices heard."
"The Supreme Court allowing Virginia to engage in a last-minute purge that includes many known eligible citizens in the final days before an election is outrageous," Lang declared. "But the voters will decide this election, not the courts. Eligible Virginia voters should know that regardless of this purge they can register to vote on Election Day and cast their ballots."
"I am hopping mad. The Supreme Court issued an unreasoned order reinstating a purge in Virginia based on faulty evidence that was capturing known eligible U.S. voters," she added. "But folks need to channel their (correct) anger into action. These voters can vote by registering same-day in Virginia. And that's why reforms like same-day registration are so important."
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law also criticized Wednesday's decision but emphasized that eligible Virginia voters can still participate in the upcoming election.
"By issuing a stay in the Virginia mass voter challenge case, the Supreme Court has injected confusion into the election. This stay will cause eligible Virginia citizens to be purged from voter rolls just before the election—all in service of a conspiracy theory," the Brennan Center said. "For any eligible voter in Virginia who may be impacted by the purge, please use same-day registration to cast a vote in this election. Or call (866)-OUR-VOTE if you need assistance."
This decision is just the latest in a long series of moves that have heightened concerns about the court's right-wing justices.
"In any election-related cases, we should question the impartiality of Clarence Thomas, whose wife tried to overturn the 2020 election, and Samuel Alito, who had two January 6-supporting flags flying at his homes," Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser said in a Wednesday statement, referring to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Hauser added that "this shadow docket decision is horrifying on the merits—but even more so if Thomas and Alito took part in it despite the fact that their impartiality can be reasonably questioned."
Take Back the Court Action Fund president Sarah Lipton-Lubet said that "when the right-wing court sees a law it doesn't like, it pretends it doesn't exist. And that's exactly what happened here: The partisan ideologues on Trump's Supreme Court pushed aside the clear language of the law to ensure fewer Americans can make their voices heard at the ballot box—all in service of supporting Donald Trump's bogus narrative about voter fraud. This is the Roberts Court's pattern: When in doubt, disenfranchise voters."
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