“The investigation has already led to 199 criminal charges, 37 indictments or guilty pleas, and five prison sentences,” explains Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn. “Numerous additional investigations of possible criminal conduct uncovered by the Special Counsel have been spun off to other prosecutors. The string of crimes that have already been unearthed and made public is staggering and unprecedented in our nation’s history.”

The president's well-documented lies and exaggerations are disturbing and unprecedented, but when he openly ignores and ridicules the findings of the U.S. intelligence community, he puts American lives at risk, diminishes our role in the world, and makes us all less safe.

President Trump has been comparing the hush money payments made during his campaign to those made by John Edwards. Kristen Welker is joined by Vice President for Policy and Litigation at Common Cause, Paul Ryan, to discuss how the president’s situation compares to Edwards’ case and why that might not help him at all. Duration: 7:50

"It's really an apples and oranges comparison," added Paul Ryan, the top lawyer at Common Cause, a watchdog group. Common Causes' January complaint with the Federal Election Commission prompted Cohen to publicly admit making a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. "We are not talking about minor, technical violations," Ryan said of the allegations against Cohen. "The Obama civil penalty was consistent with the types of fines that most big campaigns end up paying after an election for reporting errors," he added.

When corporate profits are at stake, campaign spending often balloons, said Kati Phillips of California Common Cause, which advocates campaign finance reform. "Health care measures are expensive," she said. "There's a lot of money to be made off of sick people."

The discrepancy is “nothing new in the sense of filing one thing with the FCC and telling the customers something else,” says Yosef Getachew of the watchdog group Common Cause, which is among advocacy groups that are fighting to block the merger.

An annual assessment by the Center for Political Accountability shows many S&P 500 companies are spending less on direct donations to political races and election-related causes than in recent years. Additionally, those S&P 500 companies that are still making political donations are moving toward more transparency. Changing political winds and growing...

“The Trump administration’s complete disregard for ethical norms shows we need big, bold solutions to try to close many of these loopholes that the administration employs and former officials are exploiting," Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, told Salon.

Campaign finance scandals rarely involve details as tawdry as the Stormy Daniels fiasco and the $130,00 hush-money payment. That shouldn’t distract citizens from doing our part to hold power accountable. As the leader of the nonpartisan watchdog organization that filed the first campaign finance complaints related to President Trump and Daniels, my request is simple: Follow the money and hold any violators — including the president of the United States — accountable to laws that protect the integrity of our democracy.