Trump Administration/Executive Ethics

The Manafort and Cohen cases are also a disturbing reminder of how differently Americans are treated by our criminal justice system depending on their skin color, wealth and status. Earlier this year, a black woman in Texas was sentenced to five years in prison for unwittingly breaking state law by voting while still under community supervision for a previous fraud charge.

"The Supreme Court could well end up deciding a variety of issues related to presidential power involving ongoing DOJ matters, including the Special Counsel’s investigation, that go to the heart of the electoral process. A cloud hangs over the very constitutional officer who is vested with the power to choose a person for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in our judicial system and who may later sit in judgment of them," wrote Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause.

Today, Common Cause urged the United States Senate to exercise its constitutional power to withhold its consent on any presidential nominee for a lifetime appointment to the United States Supreme Court until a complete record of what’s at stake is laid bare, including all of a nominee’s records relevant to the job, and until more is public concerning Department of Justice investigations involving the president and the electoral process.

“I don't recall ever seeing a president going so vociferously after the spouses of civil servants,” said Stephen Spaulding, with the non-partisan good government organization Common Cause. “On the Hill, disclosure rules might apply to an immediate family member. Nothing we have seen in the past is comparable to what we are seeing with Trump and especially out of the White House. And these are absolutely smear tactics. You see a pattern of behavior where he is absolutely willing to go after spouses of people.”

“I have a hard time imagining how those violations [by Cohen] would have come to attention of the FEC absent the investigative journalism that brought these violations to the public light, that led Common Cause to file our complaints,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause.

“We haven’t had effective enforcement at the Federal Election Commission in 10 years,” said Paul Ryan, a top attorney with the Washington-based Common Cause.