The campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) has threatened prosecutions for CNN staff if they collude to keep their candidate off the presidential debate stage on June 27th.
Kennedy has already filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), while his campaign issued a statement on Tuesday explaining:
CNN’s published debate criteria require that “a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold.” CNN is holding Kennedy to this requirement but is not requiring Presidents Biden and Trump to meet this requirement by claiming they are the “presumptive nominee” of a political party.
The FEC has now made clear that the phrase “presumptive nominee” is “not in the FEC’s debate regulation,” and therefore does not exempt CNN from the prohibition on excessive campaign contributions. As the Commission on Presidential Debates explains, “Until the conventions take place, we don’t know who the official nominees will be.”
This means that CNN, and every member of CNN who is participating in planning, executing, and holding this debate, is at risk of prosecution, as happened to Michael Cohen, for violating campaign finance laws. This risk is now acute given that any further violation would be knowing and willful, and thus could carry with it serious jail time.
CNN and its staff are on clear notice, especially given the damning evidence that the Biden campaign has openly demanded that Kennedy be excluded from the debates and Trump received assurances from CNN that Kennedy would be excluded.
Kennedy is already on the ballot in enough states to surpass the 270 electoral college votes threshold and is inching closer to the polling requirement to make the debate stage.
