FEC Commissioner Weintraub Abuses Power to Attack Trump

RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today about Democrat FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub's latest in a series of partisan attacks on President Trump:

Weintraub’s campaign against the President, using FEC time and resources, has been going on for months.  Weintraub wrote a letter back in May, after Trump suggested there was vote fraud in the 2016 election and that Kelly Ayotte’s losing bid in New Hampshire may have been due to election meddling, demanding Trump explain himself and offer proof for his claims. . . . 

Most recently, Weintraub has begun actively lobbying her colleagues on the FEC to consider involving themselves in a probe of “the reported attempts of Russia to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”  Weintraub declared in a bid to her fellow commissioners: “Every part of our government that has jurisdiction over these issues must exercise every scrap of its jurisdiction as fully as it can. . . . The FEC must find out the facts of what happened during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and move swiftly and firmly to fix any problems we find.” 

Weintraub then requests that the FEC receive briefings on other agencies’ investigations, examine its enforcement practices, assure the public that FEC databases are secure, begin rule-making regarding corporate spending in politics, consider other rulemaking, and consider making recommendation to Congress. . . . The rest of the memo makes clear that Weintraub views this as only another front to attack the Trump Administration, in hopes of finding some smoking Russian gun to bring down President Trump.  If the FEC acted as Weintraub demands, it could vastly, unilaterally expand its jurisdiction and infringe on the jurisdiction of other federal agencies, Congress, and the states. . . . 

There is no doubt Weintraub in her vocal anti-Trump fanaticism is overstepping her mandate as an FEC commissioner. . . . Now, Weintraub threatens to make it nearly impossible for the FEC to remain impartial on any matter regarding President Trump. . . . As Republican FEC Commissioner Lee Goodman has said: “We are a law enforcement agency at the end of the day, and we must be strictly impartial and neutral in how we approach cases, not just in actuality but in the appearance of how we conduct ourselves.”

The RNLA will follow Commissioner Weintraub's actions and highlight future examples of partisanship here and in our weekly Daily Caller column.