Abuse of Power

Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, has written to the DOJ, Federal Elections Commission and the Southern District of New York asking for investigations into campaign finance violations pertaining to Trump’s hush money payments to two women and over the president’s request that Ukraine investigate Biden for corruption. Ryan said federal officials should feel duty-bound to investigate even when Trump is out of office, but said he fears the political pressure to look the other way will be too great. “I don’t think politics should play a role, but it probably will,” Ryan said. “I suspect, against my own wishes, that a Biden DOJ will probably not pursue crimes against his predecessor. We have a history in this country of presidents looking the other way and letting bygones be bygones. That’s not good for democracy in terms of election law and future precedent. But Biden may find it necessary for democracy writ large to try and move the country forward.”

“It’ll be a slush fund,” said Paul S. Ryan, a campaign finance lawyer with Common Cause. “Trump could decide to pay himself $1 million a year out of this fund. That’s legal. He could pay [his children] Don Jr. and Ivanka, if he wanted to. It’s pretty clear that this is a classic bait-and-switch scheme.”

“Common Cause believes that the Supreme Court must act before the dagger is in the heart of our Constitution. The Administration has made clear its intention to erase millions of people from the census and has engaged in multiple steps to advance its plot to sabotage the Census count,” said Kathay Feng, Common Cause National Redistricting Director. “We are counting on the Supreme Court to protect our most vulnerable families and our constitution.” 

Common Cause v. Trump challenges President Trump’s Executive Order to exclude undocumented people from being counted in congressional district apportionment.

Our democracy has endured wars, pandemics, natural disasters and now a lawless president. And despite that, next year will likely bring more unexpected challenges that we’ll confront as a nation. We nonetheless must be thankful for what we have, as imperfect as our system is. Change has often been cyclical, and following the scandals of the Trump administration, we may soon have a once-in-a-generation opportunity. If one thing is clear, it’s that we’re on the doorstep of passing a comprehensive reform package to put “we the people” back in charge of our democracy.

Campaign-finance laws were designed to limit the influence of private actors in elections — “to prevent not only the actual corruption of public officials but even the appearance of corruption that could undermine voter faith in government,” as Paul S. Ryan, the vice president of policy and litigation at the election-watchdog group Common Cause, told me.