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federal election commission
Open Season for Corruption as Resignations and Trump Attacks Leave FEC Toothless
"With unprecedented amounts of Big Money flooding our elections, the American people deserve a fully functioning FEC that serves as a watchdog—not one that protects corrupt politicians and billionaire donors."
May 01, 2025
The federal body that oversees the nation's campaign finance system officially lost its enforcement and rulemaking powers Thursday following a pair of resignations and U.S. President Donald Trump's lawless firing of a Democratic official.
The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) was left with just three sitting members—one short of the four required for a quorum—after two Republican commissioners departed and Trump terminated Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub in February.
While Weintraub called the firing illegal and said she intended to remain in office in defiance of the president, Politico noted that she "has not participated in recent commission votes and is no longer listed on the agency's website."
Daniel Weiner, director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, noted Thursday that "such a shortfall" on the commission "has only happened three other times in the FEC's 50-year history, including twice during Trump's first term."
"Thanks in part to its evenly divided leadership, the FEC is nobody's idea of an aggressive watchdog, often deadlocking on partisan lines in important matters," Weiner added. "That gridlock has exacerbated the effects of Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United, for instance, by making it easier for candidates to outsource key campaign operations to super PACs that can raise unlimited amounts of money. But even a dysfunctional FEC is still important."
"Loss of the FEC's quorum won't keep data from being collected and published, but the commission won't be able to do anything to enforce reporting requirements against those who ignore them," he continued. "It also can't address novel legal issues that arise—for instance, in connection to online campaign activity, where significant reporting gaps remain."
The FEC is once again virtually powerless just months after one of the most expensive elections in U.S. history, which saw the top 100 billionaire families in the U.S. pump $2.6 billion into federal contests. Elon Musk, the world's richest man, spent hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Trump's campaign and engaged in what experts and watchdogs called a "clearly illegal vote-buying" operation.
The anti-corruption group End Citizens United wrote on social media Thursday that "with unprecedented amounts of Big Money flooding our elections, the American people deserve a fully functioning FEC that serves as a watchdog—not one that protects corrupt politicians and billionaire donors."
"By gutting the agency," the group wrote, "the door has been left wide open to corruption in our elections."
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FEC Rejects Trump Campaign's Allegations of Washington Post Bias
The commission voted 4-0 to dismiss the complaint against the newspaper owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos—who donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration and cracked down on criticism of the president at the paper.
Mar 27, 2025
The Federal Election Commission on Thursday issued a unanimous decision dismissing a complaint by U.S. President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign accusing The Washington Post of "illegal corporate in-kind contributions" to then-Vice President Kamala Harris' failed Democratic presidential campaign.
The campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.org reported that the FEC commissioners voted 4-0 to reject the Trump team's allegation that the Post bought social media ads in a bid to boost news articles critical of the Republican nominee.
Lawyers for the Post—which is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, who donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration and sat with fellow oligarchs Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg at the January swearing-in, and who has cracked down on criticism of the president and his Cabinet at the paper—called the Trump campaign's allegations "speculative and demonstrably false."
As OpenSecrets.org's Dave Levinthal wrote:
Trump's campaign had alleged that The Washington Post was conducting a "dark money corporate campaign in opposition to President Donald J. Trump" and used "its own online advertising efforts to promote Kamala Harris' presidential candidacy... Trump's campaign also argued that the Post was not entitled to what's known as a "press exemption" for political content because it was "not functioning within the scope of a legitimate press entity."
The FEC general counsel's office disagreed and advised the commissioners to dismiss the complaint based on "an internal 'scoring criteria' for agency resources," Levinthal explained, adding that "the Post 'appears to have been acting within its legitimate press function and thus its activities are protected' by federal election laws' exemption for overtly journalistic activities."
"Given that low rating and the apparent applicability of the press exemption, we recommend that the commission dismiss the complaint, consistent with the commission's prosecutorial discretion to determine the proper ordering of its priorities and use of agency resources," the office advised.
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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 told The 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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