MINNEAPOLIS — The DFL Party has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, citing a lack of campaign finance reports by Adam Charles Weeks, the Legal Marijuana Now Party in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District.
Weeks, who is an organic vegetable farmer in Goodhue, Minnesota, told KARE he hasn't reached the $5,000 threshold that would trigger filing a campaign finance report. In keeping with the movement to legalize recreational cannabis, Weeks has asked supporters for donations of $4.20 or $420.
DFL insiders say they suspect Weeks entered the race merely to pull progressive votes away from the incumbent Democrat Rep. Angie Craig, to the benefit of her Republican challenger Tyler Kistner.
Weeks removed all of his Facebook posts from before May 21 of this years, but before that the DFL staff had already screen-grabbed a series of Weeks' posts supporting Republican candidates and causes.
In one captured Facebook post from November of 2018, he's posing with then-Congressman Jason Lewis, urging people to vote for Lewis. The next day, in another post captured by the DFL, Weeks urges his Facebook friends to vote for Republican Karin Housley in the U.S. Senate race.
In another captured image from the same month on Facebook, Weeks posted a link to an article adding, "Texas voters beware the dems are socialist scum." In another screen-grabbed post, Weeks urges people to watch the conservative Project Veritas investigative videos.
In an older post captured by the DFL, Weeks appears to be at then-candidate Donald Trump's 2016 rally chanting "lock her up" in unison with the crowd inside the airplane hangar.
Weeks disputed the notion that he's not running in earnest, when contacted by KARE. He dismissed the DFL's complaint with the FEC as an attempt to squelch a third-party candidate.
"This spurious complaint filed by the MN DFL is just another example of how the two major parties attempt to attack, marginalize, and intimidate third-party campaigns in an attempt to maintain the corrupt two-party duopoly, and limit the choices available to voters," Week wrote in a statement to KARE.
"Congressional Democrats and Republicans are in essence two sides of the same coin. Offering opposing rhetoric, while, in practice, legislators from both parties simply do the bidding of the multinational corporations which fund their campaigns."
There's nothing illegal about a former Republican or Democrat running as a third-party candidate, and many of Weeks' current social media posts are critical of both Republicans and Democrats.
Those recent posts also express opposition to the federal government's "War on Drugs" and point out those efforts to clamp down on illicit drugs fell hardest on Black Americans. There's another post from Weeks decrying the treatment of Black citizens by the Minneapolis Police Department.
Another screen grab obtained by the DFL staff shows Weeks posing with Republican Rep. Steve Drazkowski at Freedom Fest, an event hosted by Republican Rep. Jeremy Munson. In the picture, Weeks is wearing a "MAGAsota" headband.
Both Drazkowski and Munson belong to the New Republican Caucus in the legislature, which broke away from the main House GOP Caucus.
CD2 stretches from the southern Twin Cities suburbs to areas south of Wabasha. The seat was held by Republicans in recent history, a string that Craig ended when she defeated incumbent Rep. Jason Lewis in 2018.
