Trump Campaign Files FEC Complaint on Britain’s Labour Party Election Interference

The Trump campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to stop the British Labour Party’s election interference.

As The New American reported last week, a Labour Party chieftain announced that the party was sending 100 volunteers to the battleground states to corral votes for Vice President Kamala Harris. The effort is very likely an illegal campaign contribution or in-kind expenditure.

But the complaint adds that other top Labour officials are advising the Harris campaign, which is borrowing Labour Party propaganda.

The Complaint

The complaint opens on an amusing note:

When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in

America, it did not end well for them. This past week marked the 243 anniversary of the surrender of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown, a military victory that ensured that the United States would be politically independent of Great Britain. It appears that the Labour Party and the Harris for President campaign have forgotten the message.

The complaint then accuses the Labour Party’s “blatant foreign interference” in the election with “illegal foreign national contributions,” citing The Washington Post and London’s Telegraph.

The Post reported that “strategists linked to Britain’s Labour Party have been offering advice to Kamala Harris about how to earn back disaffected voters and run a winning campaign from the center left.” 

The Telegraph explained that “Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, and Matthew Doyle, director of communications, attended the convention in Chicago and met with Ms Harris’ campaign team,” and “Deborah Mattinson, Sir Keir’s director of strategy, also went to Washington in September to brief Ms Harris’ presidential campaign on Labour’s election-winning approach.”

As well, the Harris campaign is plagiarizing Labour Party slogans such as “stop the chaos” and “turn the page.” 

The complaint includes a screenshot of a LinkedIn post by the party’s head of operations, Sofia Patel. “I have nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the US in the next few weeks heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia,” she announced:

I have 10 spots available for anyone available to head to the battleground state of North Carolina — we will sort your housing. Email me on [email protected] if you’re interested. Thanks!

As well, the complaint observes, Patel emailed her staff to seek volunteers to “help our friends across the pond elect their first female president” and “show those Yanks how to win elections!”

Patel also plans to interfere personally, with a visit “two weeks prior to the election and stay in Washington, D.C., for a few days afterward,” the complaint notes, citing Washington, D.C.’s WJLA television station.

The complaint adds that the election riggers would pay for their own flights, but that Democratic operatives would provide accommodations.

The Law

Citing federal law, the complaint also notes that foreigners are forbidden from “directly or indirectly” contributing “money or [any] other thing of value, or [making] an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election.”

Also prohibited are independent expenditures.

Nor may a candidate accept such help.

FEC rules state that foreigners cannot “direct, dictate, control, or directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process of any person, such as a corporation, labor organization, political committee, or political organization with regard to such person’s Federal or non-Federal election-related activities.”

And the Labour Party, the complaint avers, is following the example of the Australian Labour Party (ALP), which interfered in the 2016 election by helping candidate Bernie Sanders.

The party down under placed “delegates” inside the Sanders campaign and paid for their flights and a daily stipend:

“ALP delegates engaged in hands-on activity while placed with the Committee, including encouraging voter attendance at campaign events, recruiting volunteers, canvassing with volunteers, and planning events,” which the Commission determined constituted campaign services to Bernie. Based on these facts, the Commission determined that ALP and Bernie violated the foreign national prohibition and assessed each a civil penalty of $14,500.

The British Labour Party’s “interference is occurring in plain sight,” the complaint argues:

Ms. Patel’s posts and press reporting surrounding the relationship between the Harris campaign and the Labour Party create a reasonable inference that the Labour Party has made, and the Harris campaign has accepted, illegal foreign national contributions.

To protect our democracy from illegal foreign influence, it is imperative that the Federal Election Commission open a MUR [Matter Under Review], find reason to believe, and investigate this matter immediately.

Personal Funds Not Allowed

Importantly, that the Labour Party election riggers will pay for their travel won’t matter, as the FEC’s page on foreign nationals clearly explains. A foreign national cannot expend even personal funds to help a campaign.

Again, as the complaint notes, “federal law prohibits contributions, donations, expenditures (including independent expenditures) and disbursements solicited, directed, received or made directly or indirectly by or from foreign nationals in connection with any federal, state or local election.”

And the statute adds this proviso:

This prohibition includes advances of personal funds, contributions or donations made to political party committees and organizations, state or local party committees for the purchase or construction of an office building funds … and contributions or disbursements to make electioneering communications.

When CNN, The New York Times, and rest of the slavishly pro-Harris, leftist mainstream media will begin ranting hysterically about foreign election interference or a “British Collusion” scandal is unknown.