Breaking News: FEC Rules in Favor of Kennedy. He Must Be Allowed in the CNN Debate
Louis Conte | June 12, 2024
“FEC says, if CNN colludes with those campaigns to exclude me, it’s an illegal campaign contribution.” – Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
By Louis Conte, Headlines Editor, The Kennedy Beacon
I was about to eat a cheese omelet when news broke about a major victory for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has informed CNN that Kennedy must be included in its June 27 debate.
If voters are allowed to see and hear Kennedy debate the other two candidates, his polling is going to skyrocket. I knew I had to put aside my breakfast to write up the news.
NewsNation reported that the FEC told CNN that it will be violating campaign finance law if Kennedy is kept off the debate stage.
Kennedy filed an FEC complaint alleging that CNN, Biden, and Trump flagrantly violated the Federal Election Campaign Act’s requirement that media broadcasters use “pre-established” and “objective” criteria to determine candidate participation.
By any measure, this is a stunning development that highlights the ongoing corruption of DNC-aligned legacy media and their clear intention to marginalize Kennedy’s candidacy.
The FEC ruling is a huge victory for Kennedy. It is, however, an awful day down at CNN.
“America’s most trusted news source,” as CNN calls itself, faces criminal prosecution for violating federal campaign law if the debate goes ahead without Kennedy. Because CNN used biased criteria, designed to exclude Kennedy, the network’s debate amounts to a campaign contribution and is subject to strict donation limits, the Commission argued
Michael Cohen, one of former president Trump’s attorneys, was prosecuted and served prison time for violating campaign finance laws. CNN’s leadership may wish to consult with Cohen, as they have in the past, about what federal prison is like, if they need legal advice.
The Kennedy campaign released a pointed statement: “This means that CNN, and every member of CNN who is participating in planning, executing, and holding this debate, is at risk of prosecution, as happened to Michael Cohen, for violating campaign finance laws. This risk is now acute given that any further violation would be knowing and willful, and thus could carry with it serious jail time.”
CNN’s published debate criteria require that “a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold.” CNN held Kennedy to this requirement but did not require Biden and Trump to meet the same standard. They are the “presumptive nominees” of their parties and do not technically appear on any ballot yet.
The phrase “presumptive nominee” is “not in the FEC’s debate regulation” and therefore does not exempt CNN from the prohibition on excessive campaign contributions.
The Commission on Presidential Debates noted, “Until the conventions take place, we don’t know who the official nominees will be.”
CNN planned the debate between Biden and Trump one-on-one, without seeking input from the Kennedy campaign. The Kennedy campaign warns: “CNN and its staff are on clear notice, especially given the damning evidence [reported in The Washington Post] that the Biden campaign has openly demanded that Kennedy be excluded from the debates and Trump received assurances from CNN that Kennedy would be excluded.”
If CNN proceeds with the debate without Kennedy, the network and its staff are willfully violating federal campaign law.
As of this writing, CNN has not responded to the FEC ruling. Remarkably, other than NewsNation, no mainstream media outlet has covered this story.
However, the ruling has been picked up by Hawaii’s Island News, which quotes Kennedy as stating, “I think if people vote for a candidate out of hope, out of inspiration, that I’m gonna win the race. If they vote out of fear, then President Biden or President Trump will win. And I have five months to convince the American public that they can afford to vote out of hope [rather] than out of fear.”
