Democratic FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub says Trump fired her. She says it’s not legal.

Ellen Weintraub, the current Federal Election Commission Chair and one of three Democratic members on the committee, posted a letter on X Thursday night from President Trump that says she has been removed as an FEC member. 

The brief letter, dated January 31, 2025, reads, “You are hereby removed as a Member of the Federal Election Commission.”

On Thursday night, Weintraub alleged her firing was not legal. 

“There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn’t it,” she wrote in her social media post. “I’ve been lucky to serve the American people & stir up some good trouble along the way. That’s not changing anytime soon.”

The White House has not yet responded for comment on Weintraub’s post or firing. 

The FEC is charged with enforcing campaign finance laws and overseeing federal elections. It has an unusual composition — the commission can be composed of no more than three Republicans and three Democrats. A majority of commissioners must agree to any action, and the even partisan division on the commission frequently leads to gridlock on matters of significance. There’s currently one vacant Republican position. 

Weintraub’s six-year term expired in April 2007, but according to FEC rules, that didn’t mean she had to leave the commission.  

“Commissioners serving expired terms may choose to remain until they are replaced,” FEC rules state. The president appoints FEC commissioners, who must then be confirmed by the Senate. However, there is no written provision or language that limits if a president can replace an FEC commissioner before a replacement is appointed. 

Weintraub told CBS News that access to her FEC email, computer and cellphone stopped on Friday. She is now listed as a past commissioner on the FEC website. 

She said she received the letter, dated Jan. 31, 2025, in an email on Thursday from the White House’s Office of Presidential Personnel. Weintraub wasn’t aware of whether her fellow Democratic commissioners received a similar letter.

She said she is still mulling over her options on what to do next, and whether or not to file litigation.

“This is unprecedented. It wasn’t contemplated. The statute has a clearly laid out task for replacing commissioners and this wasn’t it,” she told CBS News. “There has never been a firing. There is nothing in the statute, in the Federal Election Campaign act that authorizes a firing.” 

“It raises concerns about political actors interfering with the operations of the agency that is supposed to be regulating political actors,” she added. 

The Campaign Legal Center, a legal nonprofit group that deals with voting issues, campaign finance and ethics, released a statement calling the president’s firing of Weintraub illegal. 

Trevor Potter, its president and the Republican former chair of the FEC, says Trump’s move to fire her without a Senate-confirmed replacement is illegal.

“As the only agency that regulates the president, Congress intentionally did not grant the president the power to fire FEC commissioners,” wrote Trevor Potter, the founder and president of the CLC and a Republican former chair of the FEC. “Trump is free to nominate multiple new commissioners and to allow Congress to perform its constitutional role of advice and consent. It’s contrary to law that he has instead opted to claim to ‘fire’ a single Democratic commissioner who has been an outspoken critic of the president’s lawbreaking and of the FEC’s failure to hold him accountable.”

Weintraub is not the only member of an independent commission to be be fired by Mr. Trump. Last month the president fired Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board. On Wednesday, she filed a lawsuit over her dismissal. Her case could determine precedent for the president’s use of executive power to remove officials in independent agencies. In an interview, she told CBS News, “There [wasn’t] any cause or any reason that I was actually terminated.”   

During Mr. Trump’s first administration, Weintraub rejected his calls to “delay the election until people can properly” vote. He claimed there would be fraud in the 2020 election because of increased absentee voting amid the pandemic.

“No, Mr. President. No,” she responded to his post. “You don’t have the power to move the election. Nor should it be moved. States and localities are asking you and Congress for funds so they can properly run the safe and secure elections all Americans want. Why don’t you work on that?”

And on Jan. 6, 2021, during the Capitol riot, Weintraub addressed Mr. Trump on social media: “No, Mr. President, the election was not stolen. You lost a free and fair election fair and square. Summon an iota of patriotism: Concede the election you have lost. Condemn the violence you have incited.”