The Federal Election Commission has been “weaponized” to target political foes of the Biden administration, sometimes allowing weak charges to spark long and costly investigations, the second-longest serving member of the panel charged on Wednesday.
“The problem is stark,” said Commissioner James “Trey” Trainor, appointed in 2020 by former President Donald Trump. “It’s the growing weaponization of the government to harass and hinder the political participation of our citizenry in the democratic process. The Federal Election Commission has become a weapon,” he told a House oversight committee.
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Breaking from the general opening statements of the other five commission members, Trainor raised a red flag about federal agencies becoming “weaponized” against the administration’s opponents.
While he did not cite the indictments against former President Donald Trump or his allies, he did point to prosecutions of “current” politicians and a past investigation of a pro-Trump Facebook page operator.
“Make no mistake, the current headlines about the criminal prosecution of political actors reflects a trend that is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the commission has become part of that problem,” said Trainor, a Texas election lawyer who advised Trump’s 2016 campaign.
What apparently sparked his concern was a decision by the independent FEC to enter into an agreement with the Biden Justice Department on investigations. Trainor said that it allows the DOJ to interfere in FEC campaign spending investigations and “secretly” share information.
That agreement, he said, “brings the commission squarely into the fold of executive agencies that routinely share information amongst themselves. Most disturbingly, members of the public are not given notice that their interactions with the FEC are memorialized by bureaucrats and could form the basis of criminal investigations.”
What’s more, he said, “This is not just a hypothetical situation, requests by the Department of Justice for us to stand aside so they can pursue a target are on the rise.”
Trainor also said that there has been an explosion in partisan demands for investigations.
“Such complaints are typically filed by ideological organizations that see an opportunity to have the legwork done on the taxpayer’s tab without regard to whether those allegations are true,” Trainor testified.
He cited the case of a Facebook page titled “Elect Trump 2020.” He said that Common Cause claimed that the anonymous founder of the page was spending over $30,000 to run “shady Facebook ads” that should have been regulated.
The FEC opened an investigation but found that the founder had spent just $430 and dropped the inquiry.
That case, he said, “is a textbook example of how the process has become the punishment.”
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He spoke at the House Administration Committee’s oversight hearing from an abbreviated version of his opening statement, shown below.
Trainor has also been targeted by foes, and faced an inspector general investigation that eventually cleared him of ethics issues. The inspector general complained in a second session of the hearing that Trainor did not cooperate with the investigation, but he had told Secrets earlier that there was nothing to the charges so he did not feel compelled to help out.
“I’m outraged at the enormous waste of time and taxpayer money that was wasted on this matter,” Trainor said in August when the inspector general report came out.
