Trump Has Pissed Off a Key Support Group by Cutting USAID

A commissioner can only be removed after the president nominates a replacement, and that person is then confirmed by the Senate. Weintraub, whose six-year term as a commissioner technically expired in 2007 but who has remained on the commission, took the rotating position as FEC chair in January.

The FEC has received dozens of complaints accusing Trump of violating campaign finance law, but none of them has been pursued because of the panel’s bipartisan deadlock. Weintraub, who has made public statements about these complaints, told The New York Times she’s “not really surprised that I am on their radar.”

Weintraub is one of three Democrats on the panel of six commissioners, a structure that often leads to a deadlock as a bipartisan vote is necessary for the watchdog agency to do anything. But Weintraub helped to engineer a new system to make the deadlock work for the Democrats, instead of against them. In her scheme, the FEC fails over and over again to vote, appearing as dysfunctional as possible, thereby compelling the federal courts to act by enforcing federal election law in its stead.