CLC v. FEC (Trump Campaign) – D.C. Circuit Reply Brief

On May 19, 2023, plaintiff-appellant Campaign Legal Center filed a reply brief in its appeal of a district court decision holding that the court could not review the FEC’s dismissal of CLC’s administrative complaint against former 2020 presidential candidate Donald J. Trump’s campaign and joint fundraising committees. That administrative complaint, which CLC filed with the FEC, alleged that the Committees unlawfully concealed upwards of three quarters of a billion dollars in 2020 campaign spending by routing payments to campaign vendors and staff through affiliated firms without reporting their ultimate payees as required by federal law. After the FEC dismissed CLC’s complaint, CLC sued the FEC claiming that the dismissal was contrary to law, but the district court concluded that it could not even review the FEC’s decision because the agency had invoked its “prosecutorial discretion.” Campaign Legal Center’s reply brief rebuts the FEC’s assertion that its decision is judicially unreviewable, and further explains why the district court decision should be reversed and the case remanded for consideration of whether the FEC’s dismissal of the administrative complaint was contrary to law.