On Wednesday, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) admitted that the outgoing Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) violated federal policies and illegally targeted “perceived political opponents” by sending a threatening letter to Elon Musk.
According to the Washington Examiner, FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey sent a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, saying that the letter to Musk concerning his efforts to encourage people to support freedom of speech constituted an attempt “to intimidate and chill private citizens and organizations from campaigning on behalf of President Trump.”
Cooksey also recommended that Horowitz, along with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), open investigations into the incident and “hold accountable any individuals responsible for any violations of federal law or department policies.”
The letter in question was sent to Musk by the DOJ just weeks before the election on November 5th.
In it, DOJ officials warned Musk’s America PAC that the pledge to give away $1 million every day to a randomly-selected voter who signed the PAC’s petition in support of freedom of speech was allegedly a violation of federal law.
The letter also accused Musk of making “a mockery of democracy.”
Musk defended his PAC’s actions, pointing out that participants at the time did “not need to register as Republicans or vote in the Nov. 5 elections.”
“The underlying motivation behind this stunt is obvious,” said Cooksey in his scathing letter to the DOJ.
“Employees of President Biden’s Department of Justice wanted to stop an independent political committee from campaigning for President Trump in crucial swing states just prior to election day.”
Cooksey further accused the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section of deliberately leaking the Musk letter to the New York Times, which was a violation of the department’s media policies.
“Writing such a letter and then leaking it also violates the department’s long-standing policy against the identification of uncharged parties and the disclosure of prejudicial information,” Cooksey continued.
Elon Musk, the founder and owner of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the owner of the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), is the wealthiest man in the world. He was previously a Democrat who supported politicians such as Barack Obama, but has shifted further to the right in recent years, due primarily to the Democrats’ increasingly radical stances, including support for censorship and transgenderism. Musk gave his official endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign following the assassination attempt against him on July 13th.
President-elect Trump has since announced that Musk, alongside businessman and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead an entirely new federal agency called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with the purpose of significantly reducing the size of the federal government over the course of the next two years. The agency plans to complete its work by July 4th, 2026, which will be the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
