Disclosure & Transparency

Common Cause and 25,213 of its members and supporters have filed formal comments urging the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to adopt the stronger of two proposals (Alternative A) to update its rules by requiring online political advertisements to include “paid for by” disclaimers currently required for TV, radio and print ads. Common Cause joins a coalition of pro-transparency organizations delivering to the FEC comments from more than 100,000 people urging the adoption of stronger online ad disclaimer rules.

In March, the advocacy group Common Cause alleged that Cambridge Analytica -- the firm that, through a U.K. affiliate, obtained personal data on up to 87 million Facebook users as part of its work for the Trump campaign -- violated election law by letting foreign nationals participate in the U.S. political decision-making process. Common Cause made its complaint to the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department.

"Bold solutions like the ones included in this package are desperately needed to fix our government and bring balance back to our democracy" - Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn.

Paul Ryan, a vice president at Common Cause, a government watchdog group, said Trump’s disclosure bolsters its Federal Election Commission complaint that the payment should have been reported by the campaign. Whenever Trump learned of the payment to Daniels -- which is still unclear -- he should have directed the campaign to report it, Ryan said. “Donald Trump’s reimbursement of Michael Cohen puts him in the middle of a campaign finance violation that he once denied knowing anything about,” Ryan said. “It’s a criminal violation because his payment amounts to knowledge that Cohen made this payment on his behalf, and campaign finance law violations become criminal violations when they are done knowingly and willingly.”

Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington, has filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Election Commission, claiming Trump broke the law when his campaign excluded details about the $130,000 payment in legally mandated filings. Trump’s acknowledgment that he reimbursed Cohen puts the president “at the middle of all of the campaign finance violations,” said Paul S. Ryan, head of litigation at Common Cause. “He knowingly and willfully caused his campaign to not disclose this expenditure, and that’s a criminal violation.”