President Trump fired Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub on Thursday in a move the Democratic official claims is illegal.
Weintraub, who has served as an FEC commissioner since 2002, shared the termination letter she received from the president on X and signaled that she won’t be leaving her post quietly.
“Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner & Chair of [FEC],” Weintraub wrote on the social media platform. “There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn’t it.”
“I’ve been lucky to serve the American people & stir up some good trouble along the way,” she added. “That’s not changing anytime soon.”
The succinct letter that Weintraub included in her post was dated Jan. 31 and included the 78-year-old president’s distinctive signature.
“You are hereby removed as a Member of the Federal Election Commission, effective immediately,” Trump wrote. “Thank you for your service on the commission.”
The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The FEC, which has six commissioners, is an independent regulatory agency tasked with enforcing campaign finance laws and overseeing the nation’s federal elections.
No more than three commissioners may be affiliated with the same political party and commissioners serve six-year terms upon being confirmed by the Senate.
Weintraub’s term expired in 2007 but she remained on the commission “in holdover status” for over two decades as a replacement for her was never appointed.
Weintraub has been critical of Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud in federal elections.
“I think it is damaging to our democracy to spread information like that if there is no proof,” she told CNN in a 2019 interview, according to Fox News, describing Trump’s allegations as “baseless.”
Then, in a lengthy X thread, Weintraub argued that Trump’s “falsehoods” about widespread mail-in voting fraud “are not mere words.”
“These falsehoods may well undermine the American people’s faith in our democracy,” she wrote in a May 2020 thread.
The axed FEC official told the New York Times Thursday that she was “not really surprised” by Trump’s letter.
“There have been dozens of complaints filed against the president,” Weintraub told the outlet.
“I have pointed that out. I’ve written about this. So I’m not really surprised that I am on their radar,” she added.
