Abuse of Power

"This shows there appears to be a gap in the law – a presidential candidate like Donald Trump could be blasting out these campaign commercial-like videos to millions of views, but viewers would not have real-time information about who is paying for them," Steven Spaulding of government watchdog group Common Cause told ABC News.  "So, we might start seeing a new trend of political campaigns blasting out videos to millions of viewers and voters will not have information to know who is paying for it to better evaluate the message," Spaulding added.

Today, Common Cause, joined by current and former elected and appointed Republican officials, filed an amici brief in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in support of the New York State’s challenge to the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The brief filed in State of New York v. United States Department of Commerce, emphasizes that the United States Constitution, and subsequently the Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees the right of every resident of the United States to be represented by a member of Congress. The Commerce Department’s addition of the citizenship question, the brief argues, will cause undercounts in areas with large non-citizen populations resulting in a Congress that will not be equally apportioned by population as the Founders intended.

Stephen Spaulding, of the government watchdog group Common Cause, said “sometimes the appearance of corruption can be just as damaging to trust, faith and confidence in government as actual corruption.” It’s not just Menendez, Spaulding said wealthy donors buying influence is all too common in Washington, and the line between favors and bribery is murky. “And the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts has by no means been a beacon of clarity on that front,” Spaulding said. “The court has by and large said this kind of access and influence is as American as apple pie and it's really up to voters to punish or reward elected officials, not the court.”

"The population in the state has increased and grown above the national average," Atlanta-based attorney, and Common Cause Board Member, Emmet Bondurant recalled thinking. "And yet the number of registered voters [was] going down."

"Look at the Trump Hotel right here in Washington, D.C., smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House — one block away, by the way, from the FBI's headquarters," Stephen Spaulding told Hill.TV co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on "Rising. That Trump Hotel has, I think, really become ground zero for the swamp. You have Republican fundraisers taking place there, foreign governments holding their fundraisers there. That is a clear, physical conflict of interest.