29. Federal Election Commission · Notable
Bar DOJ prosecutions under interpretations of FECA the FEC rejects
Printed page 863 29. Federal Election Commission
“The President should direct the DOJ and the attorney general not to prosecute individuals under an interpretation of the law with which the FEC—the expert agency designated by Congress to enforce the law civilly and issue regulations establishing the standards under which the law is applied—does not agree.”
What has happened
- Not started
No direction of this kind was issued, and the one presidential document in the window that speaks to whose reading of the law binds whom points the opposite way. Executive Order 14215 (2025-02-18) names the FEC among the independent agencies it covers and declares the President's and the Attorney General's interpretations of law controlling on the executive branch, barring agency employees from advancing a contrary interpretation — the reverse of the deference the Mandate asks for. Justice Manual 9-85.210's consultation requirement, the nearest thing to an FEC check on DOJ charging, is suspended.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- EO 14215 is the same instrument #2225 rests on; there it is attempted because it is an executive workaround for a FECA amendment. Here it is contrary evidence, not progress: sec. 7 makes the Attorney General’s legal interpretation binding on the FEC rather than the FEC’s binding on the Attorney General. Progress is measured on this ask (§3b).
- Cluster negative search with #2220, #2222 and #2223 in
docs/research/ch-29.md.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- DOJ prosecutions contrary to FEC interpretations of FECA
- ID
- 2221