By In a dramatic twist that could redefine the landscape of the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump’s campaign has launched a formal accusation against Vice President Kamala Harris, raising serious questions about the legality of her campaign’s financial maneuvers.
This development underscores the high-stakes nature of the upcoming election and promises to add fuel to an already intense political climate. The complaint filed by Trump’s team not only challenges the integrity of Harris’s campaign but also highlights the intricate and often controversial nature of swapping out one candidate for another.
The Trump campaign does not intend to simply let Kamala Harris keep all of the money donated to Joe Biden, at least without a fight with the Federal Elections Commission.
The complaint, filed by the Trump campaign’s general counsel, David Warrington, argued that the Biden campaign could not rename its committee from “Biden for President” to “Harris for President” once Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, and roll over $91m, writes The Guardian.
“This is little more than a thinly veiled $91.5m excessive contribution from one presidential candidate to another, that is, from Joe Biden’s old campaign to Kamala Harris’s new campaign. This effort makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws,” the eight-page complaint said.
“Federal candidates are prohibited from keeping contributions for elections in which they do not participate,” it added. “Biden for President 2024 has shown no intention to properly refund or re-designate the general election funds it has already received. This makes them all excess contributions.”
Whether the complaint generates traction with the FEC remains unclear, but the Trump campaign has been looking for any way to slow down the momentum Harris has been able to generate with voters and donors after she quickly became the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The lawsuit comes as the Harris campaign and Democratic allies announced a massive fundraising haul following Joe Biden’s departure the election, according to ActBlue, a “nonprofit fundraising platform that focuses on receiving donations from grassroots supporters and raises money for Democratic candidates and progressive organizations and nonprofits.”
USA Today reported that “ActBlue raised nearly $50 million in donations in the hours after Vice President Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign.
“This has been the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle,” said ActBlue, a nonprofit fundraising platform, in a tweet.
Seven hours after President Joe Biden announced he would drop from the presidential race and endorsed Harris, the nonprofit raised $46.7 million. The number includes the total amount donated to the nonprofit, not just to Harris’ campaign.”
Not everyone believes Act Blue is on the up and up, however. Some argue the online donor site is an illicit scheme to launder money and bypass campaign finance restrictions. Investigations into the Democrats’ online fundraising platform have uncovered widespread fraud.
For instance, a researcher in North Carolina found that liberals frequently use “zombie donors”—the names and addresses of elderly individuals—to channel millions of dollars to liberal candidates. This raises concerns that the funds may originate from foreign actors.
In 2020, an oversight researcher found that “ActBlue disabled their credit card verification process so that as long as the card numbers are valid, the name and address don’t need to match the actual card owner’s. No other donation platform allows this, and it results in higher transaction fees.”
Last year, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has demanded that the Federal Election Commission investigate the matter.
“Two weeks ago, alarming reports emerged of fraudulent donations being reported to the FEC by ActBlue,” Rubio wrote in a letter to the FEC chairs. “These reports indicate that numerous individuals, including senior citizens, have purportedly donated to ActBlue thousands of times a year. However, according to recent investigative reports, many of these individuals had no idea that their names and addresses were being used to give thousands of dollars in political donations, with most of these ‘donations’ going to ActBlue.”
“It should come as no surprise that ActBlue serves as vessel for fraud, considering the intentional lack of security engrained within their donation processes and systems,” Rubio wrote to the FEC.
A more recent investigation revealed that Act Blue regularly performs what has been called “smurfing,” the act of laundering money from big donors by conducting a large number of small transactions through banks and individuals.
James O’Keefe Exposed Democrat’s MASSIVE Money Laundering Operation
Contributions were made through ActBlue & Citizens all across the US
Over $200 Million Laundered
It’s called “Smurfing”: The activity of laundering money by conducting a large number of small transactions… pic.twitter.com/MShOk7igeT
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) July 23, 2024
One Person interviewed by investigators “contributed ” $217,000 through 12,000 different contributions in a 3-year period, in variations of his name and address, but had never donated to Democrats before.
[Read More: The Threat Used To Drive Biden From The Race]
