News Clips

After next year's congressional elections, when the Democrats' razor-thin majorities in both chambers of Congress will be on the line, it could be harder for Save America to argue that its rallies serve interests other than Trump's, said Paul Ryan, an attorney at Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that advocates for government reform. "It will be incumbent on the Federal Election Commission to crack down and declare that an illegal use of non-candidate funds for a presidential campaign," Ryan said.

"The decision to call a second special session is nothing more than a partisan power grab to distract us from the real challenges our communities face, like taking action to slow the spread of the delta variant and address our failing energy grid," said Stephanie Gómez, associate director of Common Cause Texas.

“Donald Trump is a one-man scam Pac,” said Paul S Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation with Common Cause. “Bait-and-switch is among his favorite fundraising tactics,” Ryan stressed, noting that Trump’s Save America Pac told “supporters he needed money to challenge the result of an election he clearly lost, and then wound up not spending nothing any on litigation last year. “Now he’s at it again, with frivolous lawsuits filed [in July] against Facebook, Twitter and Google, accompanied by fundraising appeals,” Ryan added. “This time he’s got the unlimited dark money group America First Policy Institute in on the racket.” ... “Our nation’s campaign finance and anti-fraud laws have proven no match for Trump’s schemes,” said Ryan of Common Cause. “So my one piece of advice for Trump supporters, is donor beware!”

“You are not giving them a real audit at the end of the day,” Susannah Goodman, an election security expert with Common Cause, said of the GOP reviews in Arizona and elsewhere. “It’s like going to a snake oil medicine doctor and paying him a lot of money and he gives you a bottle of green goop saying this will cure your cancer.”

It’s not “particularly sexy,” Sylvia Albert, director of Voting and Elections for Common Cause, said of ballot curing. But when you add it to other legislative changes, “we provide access across the board and give people options,” Albert said.

These new RNC tactics echo charges in a recent federal conviction of a scam PAC operator, according to Paul Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a campaign finance reform advocacy group. “The Justice Department noted in the charging document that the lies in the PAC’s fundraising emails constituted ‘material misrepresentations’ that misled potential donors,” Ryan told The Daily Beast. “The RNC is on notice that telling lies in fundraising emails can expose them to criminal prosecution for fraud.”