Posted on 09/26/2019 4:06:35 AM PDT by gattaca
Recent criticism of President Trump and the Electoral College by the Democratic chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission has come under fire from a key oversight Republican and a long-serving FEC member.
What’s more, Ellen Weintraub's bid to expand the authority of the FEC is being hit as a partisan campaign to attack Trump and Republican donors.
The criticism is to take center stage at an upcoming a House Administration Committee hearing where the bitter division on the FEC is to be probed by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the committee. The hearing was scheduled for Wednesday but the Democrats put it off due to a meeting on impeachment.
This week he received responses from FEC members to his questions of partisanship.
FEC insiders said the hearing could have far reaching implications and lead to calls to replace the three current commissioners and fill three vacant seats. The agency needs a quorum of four commissioners to vote and is currently unable to do so.
At issue is the GOP view that Weintraub has become overly partisan in her job and may be overstepping the legal boundaries of the FEC law.
“Chair Ellen Weintraub, for instance, states in her response that 'recent developments in U.S. elections' have expanded the Federal Election Commission's jurisdiction to areas not supported by statute,” said Davis in a Tuesday release.
“I am unaware of any changes to federal statute made by Congress that would allow for an 'expanded role' of the Federal Election Commission by the chair's definition,” said the Illinois Republican, adding that he also plans to probe “this uptick in partisan behavior at the Commission during tomorrow's committee hearing.”
SAD: Last night, @realDonaldTrump again made unfounded claims about massive voter fraud in NH in 2016.
In this letter, I ask him to back up his claims in terms a former casino operator should understand: “There comes a time when you need to lay your cards on the table or fold.” pic.twitter.com/vkddT1jGmH
— Ellen L Weintraub (@EllenLWeintraub) August 16, 2019 In recent months Weintraub has been calling on Trump to offer evidence to back up his claims of fraud in elections.
Last month, for example, she tweeted, “SAD: Last night, @realDonaldTrump again made unfounded claims about massive voter fraud in NH in 2016. In this letter, I ask him to back up his claims in terms a former casino operator should understand: ‘There comes a time when you need to lay your cards on the table or fold.’”
Other current and former members, however, said that the FEC has no authority to probe voter fraud.
In her letter to Davis, Weintraub defended her actions and said that the agency's inspector general gave her a green light to continue speaking out.
"I swore an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.' That task has taken on far more urgency as America’s elections have come under sustained attack by Russia and potentially other foreign adversaries. We all need to work together to protect the integrity of our elections and the faith of all Americans that our elections will be conducted freely and fairly," she said.
The @FEC heads over to Capitol Hill tomorrow at 9am ET We’re testifying before the Committee on House Administration for our first Congressional oversight hearing in 8 years.
Two panels: commissioners, then experts. Here are the written statements: https://t.co/zLbOcstz4T
— Ellen L Weintraub (@EllenLWeintraub) September 24, 2019 In addition she recently questioned Trump’s election and the Electoral College.
In letters to Davis about the FEC, Weintraub and Republican Caroline Hunter described two different worlds. And Hunter said that Weintraub has gone far past FEC boundaries.
“While I would welcome my colleague’s exercise of her First Amendment rights if she were to speak on these subjects in her personal capacity, instead she has consistently invoked her position as Commission chair. Whatever her motivation might be, I am concerned that her statements create the false impression of Commission imprimatur and risk politicizing the Commission in the eyes of the public, undermining the Commission’s legitimacy, and profoundly misrepresenting the Commission’s actual, assigned role in this country’s electoral process,” wrote Hunter.
Said Davis, “It is alarming to me that the commissioners are not even in agreement in their responses as to what is the basic mission of the FEC.”
In preparing for the hearing, his panel also said that Weintraub has crossed a political line. “Recently, FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub has demonstrated blatant partisan bias, overstepping her official Commission duties and making politically motivated social media and TV appearances,” it said.
Ellen Weintraub’s bid to expand the authority of the FEC is a move to ensure the future evolution of a socialist hegemony regulatory in nature, while ignoring the meaning and spirut of the Constitution.
My FRiend Fred Nerks would call her a Bolshevik Jew.
She is a totalitarian , anti - American of the 1st water who needs to be relegated by patriots to the obscurity she deserves.
She wants to actually have a non functioning electoral college so the popular vote will allow sanctuary cities to control the nation.
That’s the socialist revolutionary linkage for a wide spread electoral coup.
Put the bitch in jail.
You don’t say!
When she defines the POTUS as “enemy domestic” she should return to her life as a private citizen.
I would have to guess he got financial support for her.
Having spoken to Davis about another serious national corruption issue (guess), Davis showed strong wishy-washiness, not apparently going to bat for his constituent's issue and dropping it fairly quickly.
Thus, I seriously question whether Davis has the required stick-to-itiveness that is likely required for his Weintraub/FEC issue to get what would be our desired result. OTOH, that he's gotten this far on the FEC issue suggests he's gotten the help from other Republicans.
Churchill makes a case that there exist three classes of Jews: ordinary Jews who want to earn a living, raise a family and contribute to the nation they live in; Jews who work to undermine the nations of the West via socialism; and Jews who want to create a national homeland for Jews in Israel.
https://www.xyz.net.au/winston-churchill-jews/
Somebody outta grab Mitch and ask him why she hasn’t been replaced by now.
I believe I read that her term is actually expired and she is serving only until her replacement is seated.
Anybody out there, GOP?
Harvard-Yale political law lawyer. Another D-rat lawyer. In FEC since 2002 - that’s deep time.
Can any reasoning person believe she is not a rat hack, and a deep one?
Time for her to be put into the spotlight of truth.
Rule 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
Why hasn't someone sought court intervention to slap this fascist down. You only have the jurisdiction provided by statute. It's how rule of law works.
Ellen,
In NH how many NEW voters were there who registered that day to vote? How many of those now have a car registered in NH. I am from the northeast and have read articles where the people don’t seem to reside in NH. (Google it - it should not take you more than 10 minutes to have enough to investigate.)
Check the MI recount for voter fraud if you are serious. In one of the precincts a machine had just over 50 ballets and yet they had a talley of over 200 votes. If one is sharp, one could realize that they ran the ballots through the machine 4 times each with over 95% going for Hillary. There were irregularities in over 240 of the more than 600 of the precincts in Detroit.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.