After a devastating report by special prosecutor Robert Hur pointing out President Joe Biden's weak mental state, the reaction from the Democratic National Committee was fast... and surprising: filing a complaint against independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s campaign with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for allegedly violating federal election law. Kennedy did not hesitate to attribute this move to nerves in his former party after recent setbacks and poor results at the polls for President Biden.
As President Biden's cognitive competence comes under attack by the mainstream media, the DNC is doubling down on its strategy of keeping viable, non-Trump, candidates off the ballot. The DNC's disenfranchised cartel today filed a vague and specious claim against our campaign for…
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 9, 2024
Alleged violation of federal campaign finance laws
The DNC claims that Kennedy Jr. worked with the super PAC American Values 2024, which supports his candidacy, to launch an initiative that allows him to collect signatures in several states to gain access to these states' ballots. According to the complaint, "to qualify for the ballot under state law, American Values 2024 must coordinate its activity with Mr. Kennedy and his campaign in a way that violates federal campaign finance laws."
American Values 2024 announced that it will invest $15 million to collect enough signatures in 15 states so that Kennedy can be included on the November ballot. According to The Washington Post, the DNC's legal counsel Bob Lenhard spoke with several journalists to whom he explained that "state law presumes and in some cases requests that the candidate committee or candidate" be involved in the petition process, making American Values 2024 spending an illegal donation.
Kennedy denies 'vague and specious' accusations
These accusations were refuted by Kennedy Jr. and Tony Lyons, founder of American Values 2024. The candidate insists that he has not committed any violation of election law and directly accused his former part of attacking him in a "vague and specious" manner to cover up the uproar caused by Hur's report, which Kennedy Jr. believes could cause a significant number of moderate Democrats to shift away from Biden and vote for him.
As President Biden's cognitive competence comes under attack by the mainstream media, the DNC is doubling down on its strategy of keeping viable, non-Trump, candidates off the ballot. The DNC's disenfranchised cartel today filed a vague and specious claim against our campaign for allegedly colluding with the American Values Super PAC.
'DNC efforts to suppress democracy'
Kennedy spoke out against the lies and tactics of his former party colleagues, directly accusing the DNC of trying to "suppress democracy." He claimed: "The efforts by the DNC to suppress democracy, silence descent [sic.], and handpick our national leaders in smoke-filled rooms are radical departures from the core values of a party my family helped to build," he noted on X.
Lyons assured that "the DNC wants to deny millions of people their basic constitutional voting rights in a relentless onslaught against democracy. The FEC complaint is just another desperate DNC tactic to defame Kennedy, vilify him and drain his campaign funds."
Kennedy's campaign director, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, his daughter-in-law, explained that they have created a structure so that any volunteer can download signature collection forms and send them to a candidacy vendor for verification: "We receive parcels of signatures from our volunteer groups all over the United States. To my knowledge, we have yet to receive any signatures from American Values PAC or any PAC, nor have we provided any information that is not available to every volunteer and media outlet on our public website."
