Trevor Potter
06/17/22
(The Hill) – In 2019, the Campaign Legal Center, where I am founding president, and End Citizens United (ECU) filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that then-President Donald Trump’s campaign violated federal law by endorsing a super PAC. He issued a White House statement saying it was “run by allies of the President.” The complaint argued that by endorsing the super PAC, Trump was urging support of the group — in effect, unlawfully soliciting unlimited soft money (money not subject to FECA’s limitations and thus illegal for a candidate to solicit)… ECU, with Campaign Legal Center Action as counsel, sued the FEC to challenge the dismissal, but the court ruled against ECU on the reasoning that the FEC’s dismissal was non-reviewable because three commissioners had invoked the agency’s “prosecutorial discretion” in written explanations of their votes. This ruling — which ECU is appealing — frustrates Congress’s decision to guarantee judicial review of FEC dismissals.