Abuse of Power

“If the president follows through on the threat to declare a state of emergency simply to circumvent the legislative branch and build a wall on the Mexican border,” says Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn, “then Congress must act swiftly and decisively to check the abuse utilizing the National Emergencies Act, which was enacted in 1976 as a post-Watergate reform to reassert Congress’s constitutional role in checking and safeguarding against authoritarian abuses of power.”

Americans expect and deserve a President who respects the law and the office he holds. Donald Trump’s outrageous threats to abuse his office and his emergency powers to bypass congress and build a wall on the Mexican border are a transparent effort to get himself out of the government shutdown impasse that he created himself. Moreover, Trump’s proposed wall would do nothing to address the actual humanitarian crisis on the border.

Americans expect and deserve a Department of Justice (DOJ) that is above reproach. But President Trump continues to select Attorneys General who agree with his skewed worldview that he is above the law. This hammers home the need for Congress to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s attacks on the 2016 election.

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

“As a state, we were a leader in voting rights, arguably, for the decade before the 2010 shift in power,” said Bob Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause in North Carolina, a nonpartisan government watchdog group.

Common Cause asserted in a statement, “Barr must commit to safeguarding the investigation as the president has not been shy about pressuring members of his administration to curb the probe by the Special Counsel into Russia’s attack on the 2016 election."