News Clips

Were these lawyers lying in 2017? Are they lying today? Either way, the Common Cause plaintiffs rightly argue that the General Assembly should be legally prohibited from making a claim that it flatly contradicted in court one year ago.

“The FEC has found violations significantly larger in amount than the two Trump hush payments, and has a few more complaints still pending that allege much larger amounts in violation,” said Paul Ryan, an election law expert at Common Cause.

OVERBY: But at the watchdog group Common Cause, attorney Paul Seamus Ryan disagrees. He said Edwards seemed to be trying to hide the affair from his wife. By contrast, Ryan said, Cohen, Daniels, McDougal and the publisher all seemed to agree on one thing. PAUL SEAMUS RYAN: Everyone involved in this matter, except for Donald Trump, who's on the record so far has said the purpose was to influence the election. There was no ambiguity. There is no doubt. OVERBY: Ryan had a fact to add. RYAN: Hey, this wasn't Cohen and Trump's first rodeo. They've had a brush with this area of campaign finance law in the past.

For campaign finance watchdogs, its just the latest example of the "charade" of the "purported non-candidacy," as Paul S. Ryan of Common Cause has put it, where people whom we all know are running for president avoid admitting to set their own timeline for an announcement, regardless of the what the rules say.

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

President Trump can Tweet all he wants about the non-crimes of Michael Cohen and AMI. But the DOJ apparently, and correctly, sees things differently, and so did the court. “Continued” cooperation by AMI suggests this isn’t the last we’ve heard from DOJ on this matter.