'Just isn’t the way this works': Top election official Trump fired plans to stay in her job

07 February

President Donald Trump recently fired Federal Election Commission (FEC) chair Ellen Weintraub, though she's suggested she won't be going away quietly.

Trump fired Weintraub in a letter sent Thursday, and she's since been removed from the FEC website's list of current commissioners. During a Friday night interview on CNN, Weintraub said she planned to evaluate all of her options, and didn't rule out suing the Trump administration to get her job back. She insisted that as an "independent, bipartisan agency," the FEC "isn't the kind of place where the president comes in and he gets to appoint a new chair."

"That just isn't the way this works," Weintraub said. "I was duly elected and started to serve until I got this letter yesterday."

The FEC is structured as a six-member party, with three commissioners from each political party, nominated by the president and requiring Senate confirmation before officially being sworn in. The FEC elects its chair on an annual basis, and alternates from Democratic to Republican. Weintraub — a Democrat — was set to chair the body until her abrupt firing earlier this week

"This has never happened in the history of the agency. The law sets out a path for replacing FEC commissioners," she explained. "The president's track record on getting confirmations is pretty good. It wouldn't have been that hard for him to do it the legal way. But there is nothing in the statute about just removing FEC commissioners in this way, and it has never happened before."

Weintraub initially posted about Trump's letter firing her to Bluesky, telling her followers: "There's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn't it."

"I've been so fortunate to serve the American people and stir up some good trouble along the way," she wrote. "That's not changing anytime soon."

Watch the video of Weintraub's segment below, or by clicking this link.

From Your Site Articles