When a European Union official openly threatened Elon Musk before his Monday discussion with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, Americans were outraged — and rightly so. It was a blatant attack upon free speech by a foreign entity.
Less noticed, however, was a left-wing PAC acting immediately after the discussion to get the Biden administration’s Federal Election Commission to punish Musk for daring to have the talk with the presidential candidate.
In a filing with the FEC on Tuesday, End Citizens United — which takes its name from the Supreme Court decision which upheld the freedom of speech for independent groups spending on political campaigns — called the Monday discussion “blatantly illegal” because it constituted a contribution to Trump’s campaign.
“The complaint states that the resources X Corp. owner Elon Musk dedicated to hosting Donald Trump for a campaign event was an impermissible corporate in-kind contribution that violated campaign finance laws,” the group said in a news release shortly after the complaint was filed.
The filing said that the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 “prohibit[s] corporations from making contributions to federal candidates, and federal candidates may not accept such contributions.”
“A ‘contribution’ includes ‘anything of value’ provided to a federal candidate in connection with their election,” the complaint read.
“Although there is an exemption for ‘any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication,’ a contribution can result if an entity otherwise entitled to the press exemption performs functions that are not within its normal press function.”
End Citizens United argued that it couldn’t, due to “the considerable resources of X to host Trump’s campaign event, including dedicating real-time staff to address technical difficulties specifically for the campaign event and the time of its owner to participate in the event,” which they said were “of significant value to the Trump Campaign.”
Needless to say, this post from Musk wasn’t included in the complaint, as if it weren’t relevant in the slightest:
Is this an assault on free speech?
Happy to host Kamala on an Spaces too
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Similarly problematic was End Citizens United president Tiffany Muller’s statement along with the news release.
“The Donald Trump-Elon Musk campaign rally hosted on X wasn’t just an incoherent diatribe of lies marred by technical difficulties[,] it was a blatantly illegal corporate contribution to Donald Trump’s campaign,” she said.
“This brazen corporate contribution undermines campaign finance laws and would set a dangerous precedent for unfettered, direct corporate engagement in campaigns.
“The FEC must investigate this corporate-funded campaign event and hold Trump, his campaign, and X Corp. accountable.”
OK, let’s assume Mueller’s grammatically challenged statement (learn how to use a comma, woman) was accurate and that this really was an “incoherent diatribe of lies marred by technical difficulties.”
Leave aside that she and others who want to see a Supreme Court that will dismantle Citizens United and other rulings antithetical to the leftist ethos dismantled, which would involve a Democrat president being elected. Let them talk every night, then, right?
Ah, but it’s the precedent of the thing — the fact he talked to a presidential candidate he tacitly supports, despite the fact that an offer to the other side has been made. Never mind, of course, that Musk previously hosted an X Spaces chat with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who, as you may recall, wasn’t exactly too friendly with Trump during the election season.
Never mind, too, that Musk is in the business of drawing eyes and ears to X, and that a Harris event — if she decided that she was actually going to do an interview, which she’s so far avoided since becoming the presumptive nominee like dental surgery performed by an angry skunk — would attract similar attention.
And never mind, too, that Big Tech companies which openly favor one party over the other are just fine by End Citizens United in general.
Take Google, which has just admitted that its algorithm suppressed information about the Trump assassination attempt and served news about Kamala Harris to those searching for Donald Trump. End Citizens United last complained about them in earnest, according to a search of their website, after the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol incursion, and that was for donating to too many Republicans via their PAC. Let that one sink in.
Or take Facebook, whose employees and executives have made clear where they stand through their contributions — and have policed the platform accordingly. The last time ECU complained about them in earnest was all the way back in 2017, and that was over the now-debunked Russiagate hoax.
But one discussion with Donald Trump and suddenly, the PAC wants Biden’s FEC all over Musk.
If you thought the E.U. was bad, just remember: The Western left, in all its guises, is profoundly anti-free speech. We have the First Amendment, which makes it harder for them. However, it’s not impossible for them to throw a spanner into the works, as witnessed by this shameless attempt at federal censorship.
