Trump Administration/Executive Ethics

Americans deserve to know the full truth about the Trump administration’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigation into Russia’s campaign to help elect Donald Trump to the presidency. They deserve to know the full truth about the impact of the president’s denial of the past and ongoing Russian threat to the integrity of our elections. And they deserve to know whether the president and members of his inner circle committed felony campaign finance violations.It has become alarmingly apparent though, that without a significant course change, the American people will not be given the full truth. It is time for a congressional impeachment investigation because Americans deserve the truth.

Today, Common Cause called on the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately begin an impeachment investigation in response to White House non-cooperation and stonewalling of any attempts to investigate past and current potential criminal conduct or wrongdoing by President Trump or members of his administration. In new a detailed report that will be sent to every member of the House, the nonpartisan government watchdog makes the case, and stresses the need, for the impeachment inquiry. 

This now-public evidence of Trump’s campaign finance crimes is likely only the tip of the iceberg. These facts were known by the DOJ before it obtained and executed search warrants on Cohen and sent him to prison via guilty plea to multiple campaign finance law violations and other crimes. Since that time, the DOJ accumulated evidence not only from the Cohen raid and Cohen’s testimony, but also from cooperating witnesses David Pecker and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, both of whom have received some type of immunity from the DOJ in this matter.

The evidence released today by the Department of Justice (DOJ) by order of a judge strongly suggests that Donald Trump violated campaign finance laws in the closing weeks of his presidential run in 2016. Previously we had only Michael Cohen’s word that Trump had committed felony campaign finance violations through his direct involvement in hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, but now we have extensive evidence from the DOJ to back it up. We also learned for the first time that 2016 Trump campaign press secretary Hope Hicks was also aware and involved in $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep her from revealing an affair she allegedly had with the Trump—implicating her in campaign finance crimes.

The revolving door is an age-old problem in Washington but the scope and volume of the conflicts in the current administration - starting with the president himself – is unprecedented and lends new urgency to legislative reforms pending in Congress. The “Executive Branch Conflict of Interest Act”(HR 599/S 156) would curb many of these abuses by mandating recusal periods, prohibiting employer bonuses to those leaving to take government positions, tightening lobbying rules and lengthening “cooling off” periods. Presidential conflicts of interest measures have also been introduced in both the House (HR 1481) and Senate (S 882). Provisions from these bills are also included in a sweeping set of reforms in the “For the People Act” (HR 1/S 949), which passed the House earlier this year.

Common Cause is tracking which members of Congress have read, or not read, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian attacks on the 2016 presidential election. The new easily searchable “Will Congress Act?” website (willcongressact.org) allows people to see whether their Members have read the report and contact them to ask that they read it if they have not.