America


Federal Election Commission Under Fire


JD Vance leads move to curb its authority. F BY ALICE GIORDANO


or the first time since it was created more than half a century ago, America is oper- ating without a Federal Elec-


tion Commission. The six-member bipartisan board,


which is tasked with enforcing cam- paign financing laws, has been with- out a quorum for months. It’s down to two members, and President Donald Trump, who has the sole authority to fill the vacancies, has made no move to do so. This month, the U.S. Supreme


Court is slated to hear a potentially landmark First Amendment case led by Vice President JD Vance against the board. If successful, it would peel back


the FEC’s power by stipulating that campaign contributions directly gar- nered by candidates should be con-


sidered protected speech and that longstanding limits on contributions should be lifted. Even more ambitious, it asks the


court to overturn its 1971 landmark ruling that campaign financing limits are intended to protect against buy- ing votes for favors and other forms of corruption. There are a host of indicators that


the FEC has been dominated by pro- gressives and is no longer a neutral overseer of campaign finances. Last year, Stuart McPhail, direc-


tor of campaign finance litigation at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), claimed that GOP members of the FEC had “single- handedly blocked FEC action against Trump 29 times.” Then there is the FEC’s recently


departed chairwoman, Ellen Wein- traub, a major critic of Trump.


On the day of the Jan. 6 protests,


she tweeted on Twitter (now X): “Sum- mon an iota of patriotism: Concede the election you have lost. Condemn the violence you have incited.” Weintraub, a Biden appointee, was


fired by Trump just 11 days after he returned to office. She has since written in an Oct.


14 article, “The Trump administra- tion’s gutting of the FEC is another indication of a pervasive contempt for the electoral process and the post- Watergate anti-corruption reforms that would have made Richard Nixon blush.” The FEC has taken other anti- Republican positions, including dis- missing a complaint last year against the Democrat-tied PAC Last Best Place for a $5.8 million smear cam- paign it ran against Montana GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy.


Trump Pardons Crypto Mogul P


resident Donald Trump pardoned Binance


founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served prison time after failing to stop criminals from using the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug traficking, and terrorism. Zhao has ties to World


ZHAO 24 NEWSMAX | DECEMBER 2025


Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that the Republican president and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September.


Trump’s most recent financial


disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio to the U.S. dollar.


“I failed here. I deeply regret my failure, and


I am sorry.” — Changpeng Zhao


White House press secretary


Karoline Leavitt said that the Biden administration prosecuted Zhao out of a “desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry.” She said there were


“no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims,” though Zhao had pleaded guilty in November to one count of failing to maintain an anti- money-laundering program. “I failed here,” Zhao told the


court last year. “I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”


VANCE/NATHAN HOWARD-POOL/GETTY IMAGES / LOGO/JAAP ARRIENS/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES / ZHAO/PEDRO FIÚZA/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES


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