Remember that highly contentious presidential debate on September 10? It was hosted by ABC and moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis. During the debate, the moderators seemed to spend more time fact-checking former President Donald Trump than focusing on Vice President Kamala Harris, making it seem like a 90-minute campaign ad for Harris.

The Center for American Rights wasn’t too pleased with how everything went down. They filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), calling for someone to hold ABC accountable for two major issues: a potentially illegal campaign donation and a violation of their broadcast license.

Broadcast airwaves are different from the web or your blog. You can’t just grab a corner of the internet and say whatever you want—broadcast airwaves are public property. That’s why the FCC licenses them to broadcasters with the understanding that they’ll actually serve the public interest. And—surprise—hosting a biased debate doesn’t exactly fall under “public service.”

Daniel Suhr, an attorney for the Center for American Rights, made it clear: “Debates must be fair and impartial, and when you fail, there must be accountability from the regulator.” According to Suhr, “The media have been pushing the boundaries for decades, and what ABC did was further than what anyone had done previously.”

Their first complaint targets WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, the ABC affiliate that was responsible for this so-called debate. According to the Center, the public deserves to be “honestly informed,” and the FCC is responsible for investigating any broadcaster that looks like it’s trying to push a particular political agenda. And guess what? That’s precisely what ABC was doing.

The complaint points out that ABC’s moderators skipped important questions—like whether Biden’s mental health is an issue and if he should step down. You know, small stuff like that. They also ignored the fact that someone tried to assassinate Trump. Harris wasn’t asked anything about the Secret Service or how to improve security, and ABC just let it go without a mention.

The Center is telling the FCC that ABC failed to meet the “public interest standard” by engaging in “news distortion and suppression.” They’re asking the FCC to reprimand WPVI publicly for airing a show that was more propaganda than debate.

The Center for American Rights has also filed a complaint with the FEC, and this one even gets a juicier. According to them, that debate wasn’t a debate at all—it was a 90-minute prime-time campaign donation. They believe that’s a problem because it’s illegal for corporations like ABC to make contributions to presidential campaigns.

The FEC complaint claims that ABC wasn’t just acting as neutral moderators—they were showing apparent favoritism. The moderators fact-checked Trump but allowed Harris to spread obvious misinformation without challenging her. One example of this was when Harris said, “There’s not a single active-duty U.S. soldier in a combat zone for the first time this century.” The deployed troops currently risking their necks overseas would beg to differ. Some of them took to social media to call out Harris’s outright lie.

Then there’s Harris’ strange obsession with Project 2025, a plan by the Heritage Foundation that she claims Trump supports. Trump has made it clear he wasn’t involved in creating it and has no plans to use it. But that didn’t stop Harris from pushing the false narrative.

Harris also claimed Trump would sign a national abortion ban, even though Trump’s repeatedly said he thinks states should handle the issue. But hey, why let facts get in the way of a good narrative, right?

If ABC had charged Harris for what essentially amounted to a 90-minute infomercial, it would have cost tens of millions of dollars. But they didn’t. So now, ABC is facing the possibility of some hefty fines for an undeclared, illegal campaign donation.

Both the FCC and the FEC are gearing up to investigate the claim.