News Clips

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

President Trump can Tweet all he wants about the non-crimes of Michael Cohen and AMI. But the DOJ apparently, and correctly, sees things differently, and so did the court. “Continued” cooperation by AMI suggests this isn’t the last we’ve heard from DOJ on this matter.

"It's really an apples and oranges comparison," added Paul Ryan, the top lawyer at Common Cause, a watchdog group. Common Causes' January complaint with the Federal Election Commission prompted Cohen to publicly admit making a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. "We are not talking about minor, technical violations," Ryan said of the allegations against Cohen. "The Obama civil penalty was consistent with the types of fines that most big campaigns end up paying after an election for reporting errors," he added.

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."

The effort was applauded Friday by the government watchdog Common Cause. “Congress is finally listening to the growing demands for reform from the American people,” the group’s president, Karen Hobert Flynn, said in a statement. “On Election Day, voters from coast-to coast sent a clear message that we are ready for bold, comprehensive democracy reforms.”

The irony is richer than Ivanka Trump herself. The president's daughter routinely conducted government business from her personal email in violation of federal rules, according to The Washington Post. All the while chants of "lock her up" still reverberate at President Donald Trump's rallies, even after he made Hillary Clinton's email use a central issue of his 2016 campaign. Just last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he would further investigate the FBI's handling of Clinton's emails if he chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee next year.