D.N.C. Files Federal Election Complaint Against Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In a federal election complaint filed on Friday, the Democratic National Committee accused Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a super PAC backing his independent presidential bid of illegally coordinating on a $15 million petition drive intended to qualify him for the ballot in several states that could be crucial to President Biden’s re-election prospects.

The 11-page complaint to the Federal Election Commission described the arrangement as an in-kind contribution to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign by the super PAC, American Values 2024, one that violated federal campaign finance laws and breached long-established financial barriers between candidates and outside groups.

“This is an effort to subvert our election laws and prop up a stalking horse in R.F.K. Jr.” Lis Smith, a senior adviser to the D.N.C., said during a Zoom call with reporters.

Mr. Kennedy, the scion of a liberal political dynasty and an environmental lawyer who has become better known for his anti-vaccine activism and promotion of conspiracy theories, joined the race last spring as a challenger for the Democratic nomination against Mr. Biden, but he abandoned the long-shot path in the fall to run as an independent.

Tony Lyons, the co-chairman of American Values 2024, dismissed the allegations that the group had broken the law.

“The Biden administration and the D.N.C. clearly find democracy inconvenient, want to stifle any dissenting opinions and don’t believe that their candidate can win a free, open and fair election,” Mr. Lyons said in a statement on Friday.

While the complaint will set off a chain of events, the F.E.C., divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans, often deadlocks on questions of whether campaigns have broken the law.

Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, pushed back in a statement of her own on Friday. She said that the campaign’s petition drive was separate from the super PAC’s activities.

“This is a nonissue being raised by a partisan political entity that seems to be increasingly concerned with its own candidate and viability,” said Ms. Kennedy, who in 2018 married Mr. Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy III.

Mr. Kennedy’s supporters are collecting signatures from voters in about a dozen states to try to secure his place on the ballot in the November election, heightening fears among some Democrats that he could play spoiler to Mr. Biden. Some national polls have Mr. Kennedy in the high single digits.

The petition drive has largely focused on heavily populated states, which are some of the largest prizes on the Electoral College map. The states include Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Texas. In some of those states, Mr. Kennedy has also filed paperwork to create his own political party, an effort to get on the ballot with fewer voter signatures.

He is not the first presidential candidate to draw scrutiny over the role of super PACs during this cycle.

Before dropping out of the Republican primary contest last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida had delegated many traditional campaign activities to his main super PAC, Never Back Down. The group spent $130 million and coordinated many of his appearances on the trail, blurring the lines between the campaign and his super PAC. A campaign watchdog group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in December, accusing Mr. DeSantis and his super PAC of illegal coordination, a complaint that was similar to the D.N.C. one against Mr. Kennedy.

And former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner, raised eyebrows with his recent disclosure that his super PACs had spent about $50 million of donor money on legal bills in 2023.