Trump Administration/Executive Ethics

“The Special Counsel concluded that the promised ‘documents and information that would incriminate Hillary’ constituted a ‘thing of value,’” the complaint supplement from Common Cause, Campaign Legal Center, and Democracy 21 states. “And that Trump Jr.—and potentially Manafort and Kushner—solicited such a contribution from a person known to be a foreign national.”The supplement concludes: “In other words, the Special Counsel concluded that, at a minimum, Trump Jr. violated the ban on soliciting contributions from foreign nationals.”

Today, Common Cause, the Campaign Legal Center, and Democracy 21 filed a supplement to a complaint filed in July 2017 against President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign committee for soliciting contributions from foreign nationals in the form of opposition research offered by Russians. Although Special Counsel Robert Mueller declined to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump Jr., Mueller provided a roadmap by which the Federal Election Commission (FEC) could pursue civil penalties.

"The citizenship question is a bald-faced attempt to racially rig the census, undercount communities of color and undermine fair representation which our democracy relies upon," said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause, a nonpartisan public interest group.

The partisan intent of the citizenship question is clear and Commerce v. New York presents a new opportunity for the Supreme Court, with newly appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, to show that it is above partisanship. This case, coupled this term with Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek, the challenges to North Carolina’s and Maryland’s outrageous partisan gerrymanders, will give the court ample opportunity to show that it truly not a partisan branch of government.

Mueller made some other questionable choices. While Trump Jr. could have been charged with illegally coordinating with the Russians to make an illegal foreign expenditure, Mueller describes the law defining coordination as too uncertain. In fact, as Common Cause’s Paul S. Ryan explains in this thread, there is both a federal statute and case law defining the term, and Trump Jr.’s conduct seems to fall within it.

Americans Now Must Hear from Special Counsel Robert Mueller in Open Hearings.