The Democratic Superteam said it is filing a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Monday accusing Donald J. Trump of violating campaign finance law by spending political funds in the 2024 presidential election without officially declaring himself a candidate.
The complaint uses Mr. Trump’s own words about the 2024 race: “I know what I’m going to do, but we shouldn’t be talking about it in terms of campaign finance laws just yet,” he said in the fall. – accuse him of misusing existing political committees to advance his presidential race.
Federal regulations require those who raise or spend more than $5,000 to support a presidential campaign with the Federal Election Commission.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly teased that he plans to run for president again, telling a conservative political action conference last month, “We’ve done it twice and we’ll do it again.” But while he formally filed for re-election on his inauguration day in 2017, Mr. Trump has not done so for 2024. Such a filing would place limits on how he can raise and spend campaign money, including his existing military budget.
Trump-controlled committees entered 2022 with $122 million in the bank, far more than the Republican Party itself.
How Donald J. Trump Still Looms
“He must abide by the law just like all other candidates,” said Jessica Floyd, president of the American Democratic group that is filing the complaint. “When he says, ‘I’m going to do this for the third time,’ it’s not flirting. It’s more than a toe push-up.”
Ms. Floyd noted that Mr. Trump’s references to the campaign law showed a clear intent to circumvent existing rules. “It’s not that he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” she said.
Taylor Budovich, Trump’s press secretary, called the complaint frivolous.
“America is headed for disaster because of the failures of the Democrats, and instead of changing course, they are busy making unfounded complaints that do not make sense,” he said.
Mr. Trump told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity in July 2021 that he had made a decision regarding another White House bid. A month later, he again stated on Fox News that “incredibly stupid” campaign finance laws prevented him from making his intentions clear.
“Let me put it this way: I think you will be happy, and I think many of our friends will be very happy. But in fact, I am not allowed to answer it, ”Trump said at the time. “If I do that, it will be very difficult for me.”
Nothing legally prevents Mr. Trump from announcing that he is running for president. But in this case, it will be subject to additional fundraising restrictions and disclosure requirements.
Once a politician has decided to run for federal office and has started fundraising, that person must submit paperwork to prove their candidacy. There is also an intermediate step for those who are “testing the waters” of the run.
The American Bridge complaint says Mr. Trump has crossed both thresholds, though the line is notoriously blurry.
For now, Mr. Trump’s main GAC, called Save America, is registered as a committee that can spend on behalf of others, and in 2021 the GAC did give $350,000 to other candidates, though that amount is much less than the amount that the GAC spent on Mr. Trump’s own real estate.
The complaint is unlikely to elicit any reprisals from the Federal Election Commission, which is equally divided between pro-Democratic and Republican commissioners and often deadlocks on contentious issues. The oversight agency’s investigation process is also notoriously slow. A complaint to the commission related to the pre-candidate activities of Jeb Bush, who announced his run for the presidency in 2015, was in court as early as December 2021.