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The Democratic National Committee led a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s executive order claiming power to be the final decision-maker on how so-called independent federal agencies interpret the law, saying it gives the president too much room to meddle.
Democrats said Mr. Trump’s assertion of power would extend to the Federal Election Commission, which is currently deciding on a complaint about the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s 2024 election spending.
The Democrats called the case “meritless” but said under Mr. Trump’s executive order, he could dictate a reading of the law to the FEC that would force a ruling against them.
The DNC, DSCC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee asked a federal judge to rule the FEC immune to Mr. Trump’s claim of power.
“By providing that no employee of the executive branch may advance an interpretation that contravenes the president or the attorney general’s opinion on a matter of law, the executive order purports to provide President Trump — the leader of the Republican Party — with the ability to order the FEC to take particular positions on any question of law arising in the commission’s performance of any of its duties,” said Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic campaign lawyer who is representing the Democrats.
Mr. Trump’s executive order says a president’s or attorney general’s “opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties.”
Agency employees are barred from advancing legal interpretations that clash with the president’s.
Mr. Trump sees the order as a way of consolidating executive authority and blocking resistance from within his administration. That comes after internal resistance scuttled much of his first-term agenda.
But the Democrats said the entire point of the FEC, a commission whose members are supposed to be evenly divided between Democratic and Republican appointees, is to place it outside a particular party’s control.
English (US) ·