News Clips

This now-public evidence of Trump’s campaign finance crimes is likely only the tip of the iceberg. These facts were known by the DOJ before it obtained and executed search warrants on Cohen and sent him to prison via guilty plea to multiple campaign finance law violations and other crimes. Since that time, the DOJ accumulated evidence not only from the Cohen raid and Cohen’s testimony, but also from cooperating witnesses David Pecker and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, both of whom have received some type of immunity from the DOJ in this matter.

Paul Seamus Ryan, a litigator at ethics watchdog Common Cause, told CNBC that unless Kushner has been soliciting donations, he's probably not violating the Hatch Act. "Legally I think the question is whether he's soliciting contributions or if he's not. If the answer is no, he's probably not violating the Hatch Act," Ryan said. "If he's only giving strategic advice, that's different from soliciting the money."

“If any connection with Kirkland and Ellis is a stain on (senior Justice Department officials), why isn’t a connection with the law firm for the receipt of campaign contributions a stain on her own campaign?” said Paul S. Ryan, an attorney for the good government group Common Cause.

“There’s an optics issue here,” said Paul S. Ryan, an attorney with the good-government group Common Cause. “You have a candidate who has sworn off big unlimited money but is closely allied with an organization that is using big unlimited money.”

"The Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr. to testify as part of its ongoing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Those proceedings warrant close scrutiny in light of Chairman Richard Burr’s close ties to the Trump administration and the deliberately misleading public statements he made during and after the presidential campaign to downplay Russian interference in support of Donald Trump's candidacy. As a member of the congressional Gang of Eight, Burr was fully briefed by U.S. intelligence officials on the Russian hacks of Democratic email servers and other attacks, but his camp downplayed them publicly." - Paul Seamus Ryan vice president of policy and litigation for Common Cause

“It pains me to say it, but I don’t think [the statement itself] is a legal problem,” Common Cause’s Paul Ryan told Score (Ryan repeatedly argued that he believed the creation of America First Policies and America First Action was illegal because of their ties to Trump’s orbit while he was a federal candidate). “Pointing to a super PAC and saying, ‘That’s the one I approve of’ doesn’t break the law.”