Rfk Jr. Files Complaint That Cnn's Debate 'colluded' With Biden And Trump To Keep Him Off The Stage

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed an official complaint about being excluded from the first presidential debate.

Kennedy alleged that the campaigns for President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, as well as the network host CNN together “colluded" to keep him off the Atlanta stage on June 27, in a letter sent to the Federal Election Commission’s acting general counsel.

The letter from Kennedy, sent on campaign letterhead, argues that CNN is in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act because of how the network came to set its debate criteria.

“The complaint establishes that because CNN is illegally demanding that Kennedy meet different criteria to participate than Presidents Biden and Trump, its debate is a large prohibited campaign contribution to Biden and Trump,” a press release about the letter stated.

Earning a place at the presidential debates is a sign of credibility for third-party candidates, validating their candidacy for voters as well as being a platform to present their views on policy. A letter from Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon explicitly called for a head-to-head debate, and a report from the Washington Post saidTrump’s team was “given assurances” that Kennedy would not be there.

This is not the first time that Biden or Trump have been accused of changing the rules to benefit their campaigns this cycle.

Biden reordered the Democratic primary calendar, advancing South Carolina to first, which some saw as a way to quash any potential primary challengers against the incumbent. And Trump’s ties to several state parties led them to alter how delegates were awarded during the GOP primary, favoring Trump in Nevada and Michigan, both early voting states.

Kennedy’s letter aske

d the FEC to consider the law, which requires debate qualification requirements to be “pre-established” before naming candidates, and alleged that CNN is setting different criteria for him to qualify than it is for Biden and Trump.

The two scheduled debates between Biden and Trump will not be hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has organized the events between campaigns and the networks that air them. As a result, the first debate will take place months earlier than the originally scheduled debates by the commission.

But CNN adopted similar criteria to the commission’s for who should qualify when it announced it would host that first debate, including eligibility to hold office as stated in the Constitution, a polling requirement and ballot access in enough states to hypothetically reach 270 Electoral College votes, the threshold needed to win.

Kennedy has gained ballot access in just a handful of states and is unlikely to get many more before late June because most states have deadlines to certify their ballots in July and August.

Biden and Trump do not technically have ballot access in a sufficient number of states to qualify either because neither has been officially nominated at party conventions yet, which don’t take place until later this summer, Kennedy's campaign pointed out in the letter.

“In an attempt to select themselves and to exclude others, CNN, President Biden, and Mr. Trump set the criteria to require that a candidate’s name appear on enough ballots to garner 270 electoral votes,” Kennedy’s letter said, adding this was specifically to “exclude” him.

Therefore, Kennedy wrote, the cost of the debate, which is paid for by CNN, is a “prohibited corporate contribution to the Biden Committee and the Trump Committee.”

CNN strongly disagreed that its eligibility criteria ran afoul of the law.

“The law in virtually every state provides that the nominee of a state-recognized political party will be allowed ballot access without petitioning. As the presumptive nominees of their parties both Biden and Trump will satisfy this requirement,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “As an independent candidate, under applicable laws RFK, Jr. does not. The mere application for ballot access does not guarantee that he will appear on the ballot in any state. In addition, RFK, Jr. does not currently meet our polling criteria, which, like the other objective criteria, were set before issuing invitations to the debate.”

The Trump and Biden campaigns did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Kennedy campaign is not the only one to take issue with the debate eligibility requirements. The Center for Competitive Democracy also sent a letter to CNN and both campaigns raising the same legal issues. And law professor Derek Muller raised questions about the debate criteria in a post for the popular legal site, Election Law Blog.

Kennedy’s letter requests a response from the FEC no later than June 20, the final day to qualify for the debate.