South Carolina among those who want to block VP Harris from money

Citizens United, GOP state parties file FEC complaint over Biden-Harris campaign funds

SC GOP among 16 state parties joining the complaint

BY: ARIANA FIGUEROA - JULY 25, 2024 7:42 PM

WASHINGTON — A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties, including South Carolina’s, filed a complaint Thursday with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FEC’s six-person commission — split evenly between Democrats and Republicans — to “immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.”

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

“Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies. But baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election,” he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records won’t be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN. 

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

“If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated …, or reattributed …, as appropriate,” he wrote.

South Carolina GOP Chairman Drew McKissick said he hopes the FEC takes “urgent action to stop this illegal and unethical transfer of funds.

“The law is clear: those funds were given to ‘Biden for President,’ not ‘Harris for President,’ or even ‘Biden-Harris,’ and Joe Biden can’t simply give her $96 million,” McKissick said in a statement. “There is no joint bank account with a vice-presidential candidate until after they officially become the nominees of their party. This was a blatant, illegal money grab, pure and simple.”

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Biden’s presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.

ARIANA FIGUEROA

Ariana covers the nation's capital for States Newsroom. Her areas of coverage include politics and policy, lobbying, elections and campaign finance.

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Nikki Haley has advice for Republicans criticizing VP Harris: Stick to policy

The former UN ambassador says she’s not looking for another job in a Trump administration

BY: ABRAHAM KENMORE - JULY 25, 2024 8:34 PM

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said there is plenty to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris for without bringing up her race or gender, advising fellow Republicans to focus on her policies instead. 

“It’s not helpful. It’s not helpful,” Haley told Jake Tapper in a CNN interview aired Thursday evening in response to a question about some Republicans calling her a “DEI hire.” (DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.)

“We’re talking about a liberal senator who literally has not accomplished very much,” Haley said about the U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021. “You don’t need to talk about what she looks like or what gender she is to talk about that.”

With President Joe Biden ending his re-election bid, Harris is now the likely Democratic candidate. During the primary, Haley predicted that Biden, now 81, would not complete a second term, saying repeatedly that a vote for him would be a vote for Harris as president.

Earlier this week, Politico reported that GOP House leadership told members to stop calling Harris a DEI candidate — suggesting she’s in her position due to her race and gender rather than achievement. The DEI comments drew instant backlash as being racist.  

Harris is not only the first female vice president but also the first Black and South Asian to hold that position. (Her father is from Jamaica and her mother is from India.)

She is also, Haley said, far more liberal than the American people want in a president. And, at 59, she is significantly younger than Biden. 

“Look, the Democrats are very smart to put in a younger candidate. I think that’s what America has craved, but I think (with Harris) … they put in the weakest candidate they could put in,” Haley said in the CNN interview, which the cable TV outlet touted as her first interview since endorsing Trump. 

Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, did not endorse Trump as she exited the race in March.

In May, during an interview at the Hudson Institute, she explained why she’s voting for Trump but still stopped short of giving an endorsement. It wasn’t until she addressed the Republican National Convention last week that she gave her full support.  

But, she told Tapper, she is not looking to join his administration again if Trump wins in November. 

“I’m not looking for a job in his administration,” she said when asked about future plans. “I don’t know whether I would run again. I think you never say never, but I don’t know how you could be someone who goes through all that and says ‘oh, let’s run for president again.’”

Haley, who was appointed by Trump to be his first ambassador to the United Nations, ended the race as his last rival. Before she dropped out in early March, the contest got personal.

Haley not only questioned the mental competence of both Biden and Trump but also called the former president a chicken for refusing to debate her. Trump called her “birdbrain” and questioned the whereabouts of her husband, who was deployed in Africa with the South Carolina National Guard at the time.

At the time, Haley said Trump’s comments on her husband showed “he’s not qualified to be president” and characterized them as an attack on the military. In the interview with Tapper, Haley said she did not take Trump’s comments personally. 

“I know Donald Trump. He’s going to throw something just to get people upset,” she said of his remarks. “But what I do feel bad, is for those who are serving.”

She did not back away from anything she said during the primary. 

“I said a lot of tough things about him in the campaign. He said a lot of tough things about me in the campaign. That’s what happens in campaigns,” she said. “I don’t think we need to apologize or take anything back. I don’t plan on doing that.” 

Haley also repeated that she does not agree with all of Trump’s positions. And she criticized Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J. D. Vance, for skipping a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Congress on Wednesday. 

Harris also skipped the presentation for a speech in Indianapolis, instead of presiding over the presentation in her role as president of the Senate. Both Vance and Harris should have attended the speech, Haley said. 

“What does that say to the people of Israel? More importantly, what did you just tell the Iranians, because they love what they’re getting right now, if she won’t even do her official job there?” Haley said. “Should J.D. Vance have been there? Yes, of course. We need to show a united front when it comes to Israel.”

Netanyahu’s speech promised victory over Hamas militants in Israel’s war in the Gaza strip, now in its ninth month.

Hamas militants launched a surprise attack into Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,100 people and taking upwards of 200 hostages. Israel retaliated with a war that has killed some 39,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza health authorities in the Hamas-controlled territory. 

Harris and Biden each met with Netanyahu separately on Thursday. Afterward, Harris described her meeting as “constructive.” In her post-meeting remarks, she also expressed concern about civilians killed by Israel’s offensive, saying “I will not be silent.”

ABRAHAM KENMORE

Abraham Kenmore is a reporter covering elections, health care and more. He joins the SC Daily Gazette from The Augusta Chronicle, where he reported on Georgia legislators, military and housing issues.

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

VP Harris meets with Netanyahu to discuss Israel-Hamas war in Gaza

BY: ASHLEY MURRAY - JULY 26, 2024 9:00 AM

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants “total victory” in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a “constructive” meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister “serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza.” Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the “only path” to peace.

“I’ve said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters,” Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent,” she said.

Harris said there has been “hopeful movement” for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

“And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done,” she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israel’s offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept “nothing less” than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages. Harris did not attend the joint session.

“The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge,” Netanyahu said. “My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.”

Israel’s parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Biden’s longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahu’s meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to “encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.”

Netanyahu’s trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahu’s near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the city’s Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words “Hamas is coming” among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the “despicable” events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

“I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation,” Harris said.

“I condemn the burning of the American flag,” Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, “but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.”