Executive Ethics

A report today suggests key members of President Trump’s family are more concerned with using their father’s new position to increase the family fortune than with serving the American public.

As news breaks about Trump campaign officials embroiled in the FBI Russian investigation, local Common Cause activists began nationwide delivery of petitions to Members of Congress, urging them to support the formation of an independent commission to investigate the Russian government’s attack on the 2016 election. The deliveries of constituent signatures come in the wake of media reports late yesterday revealing that Trump campaign advisor Carter Page was under investigation by the FBI last summer resulting in the granting of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant by a secret court. In visits to district offices from Florida to Alaska and from Maine to Arizona, activists are emphasizing that the partisan atmosphere in Washington is too charged currently for a full and fair investigation by members of Congress.

As progressive activists across the country, including many recruited by Common Cause, gear up for “Tax Day” marches on Saturday to pressure President Trump to release his federal income tax returns, a University of Chicago law professor is pushing a new strategy to force the president’s hand.

President Trump’s promise to put his far-flung business empire in a blind trust, the better to ensure that his personal financial interests could never conflict with his obligation to serve the public interest, turns out to have been fake news. Bigly.

The president is exempt from federal conflict of interest laws but his daughter and son-in-law must play by the rules.

President Trump’s promise of an “America First” policy has changed the tune of American politics. But the president’s acts raise questions about whether “America First” means a focus on US interests, or the interests of President Trump himself.