The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for Feb. 11, 2025

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)

After 22 years as a commissioner and chair of the Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub was unceremoniously sacked by President Donald Trump with this terse sentence: “You are hereby removed as a Member of the Federal Election Commission, effective immediately.”  But as with several of Trump’s recent actions, it’s not legal. 

Weintraub may have made Trump’s enemies list when she and another commissioner issued a statement in 2021 after the FEC’s three Democrats and three Republicans deadlocked, subsequently dropping the campaign finance violation complaint resulting from Trump’s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.  

Weintraub and then FEC Chair Shana Broussard said after the dismissal, “The Commission therefore did not have enough votes to pursue well-grounded charges that the former President of the United States knowingly and willfully accepted contributions nearly 5,000% over the legal limit to suppress a negative story mere days before Election Day.”

The Campaign Legal Center’s Trevor Potter, himself a former FEC chair, said in a statement, “In claiming to fire a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, the president violates the law, the separation of powers, and generations of Supreme Court precedent.  As the only agency that regulates the president, Congress intentionally did not grant the president the power to fire FEC commissioners,” he said. 

In a post on “X”, Weintraub vowed to continue her work on the commission.  

We have more at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.   I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:

Federal Election Commission – Mission & History
Federal Election Commission – Agency Structure (Weintraub’s seat is now listed as vacant)
FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub on “X” – Letter Firing Wintraub from President Donald Trump
FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub on “Bluesky” – Response to Donald Trump’s Letter
Open Secrets – What is Happening at the FEC?
Campaign Legal Center –  Trump Illegally Attempts to Fire Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) – No, the FEC did not absolve Trump of his hush money campaign finance issues
Federal Election Commission – (2021) STATEMENT OF REASONS OF CHAIR SHANA M. BROUSSARD AND COMMISSIONER ELLEN L. WEINTRAUB
Investigative Reporting Workshop – (2021) FEC debates deadlocks and dismissals

Groups Taking Action:

CREW, Campaign Legal Center

Register or Check Your Voter Registration:

U.S. Election Assistance Commission – Register And Vote in Your State

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #FEC #FederalElectionCommission #EllenWeintraub #TrumpCriminalTrials

The post Trump Attempts to Fire Federal Election Commission Chair ‘Effective Immediately.’  It’s Not Legal. appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for Nov. 15, 2024

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

Cleta Mitchell, a 2020 Trump election lawyer who later pushed so-called ‘election integrity’ laws in states around the U.S., is calling for all U.S. Department of Justice voting rights and civil rights lawyers to be fired. 

Mitchell served in Trump’s team of lawyers trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.  Since then, her Election Integrity Network group helped state legislatures make it harder to vote by mail and to register and vote on election day.  She also called for states to leave the ERIC, the interstate Electronic Registration Information Center, because of a conspiracy theory that it was run by George Soros.  And most recently, she championed Trump’s debunked claims of widespread voting by undocumented immigrants.

November 13th, the same day Rep. Matt Gaetz was nominated for U.S. Attorney General by President-elect Trump, Mitchell wrote in a social media post, QUOTE, “Every lawyer in the Voting Section and likely in the Civil Rights Division needs to be terminated.   They are not supportive of Pres Trump or MAGA.  There has to be a reckoning.  These are leftwing activists who have come from and should return to their leftwing organizations. UNQUOTE

It’s unclear whether Mitchell’s influence is enough to dismantle the DOJ’s Voting Rights and Civil Rights units, but it’s indicative of the voting rights challenges ahead.

We have more on Mitchell and her so-called ‘election integrity’ projects at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org. I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
Cleta Mitchell on X – “Every lawyer in the Voting Section and likely in the Civil Rights Division needs to be terminated.”

Mitchell’s Only Citizens Vote Coalition – No country can survive that allows guests and illegals
Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network – Election Integrity Network website
The New Republic – The Shadowy Right-Wing Group That’s Suppressing the 2024 Vote
The Guardian – She was a firebrand Democrat. Now, Cleta Mitchell is a rising star of Republican election denialism
The Hill – (2023) The 39 people the Georgia special grand jury recommended charges against
Free Speech for People – Letter to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Regarding Cleta Mitchell

Register or Check Your Voter Registration:

U.S. Election Assistance Commission – Register And Vote in Your State

Please follow us on Facebook and SHARE!  

Find all of our reports at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org

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Are you a radio station?  Find our broadcast files at Pacifica Radio Network’s Audioport and PRX

#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #USDOJ #CletaMitchell #BigLie

The post Trump ‘Election Integrity’ Lawyer Cleta Mitchell Calls for the Firing of All DOJ Voting & Civil Rights Lawyers appeared first on American Democracy Minute.