News Clips

“There’s a lot of work we need to do on the revolving door and dealing with what we talk about as the reality and the appearance of any favoritism based on prior relationships,” said Beth Rotman, director of money in politics and ethics at the watchdog group Common Cause. “Obviously, when we look at the issues of money and politics in democracy, when there are large numbers, there could be potential conflicts,” Rotman said. “All of us are always having to grapple with the balance of special interests and expertise, and there wouldn’t be many appointees who couldn’t show from their past experience some relationships with some of the same industries that they’ve been called upon to work with, because that’s where their experience comes from,” Rotman said. “We have to strike the balance between appointing people with appropriate backgrounds but also ensuring there’s not a revolving door that gives unfair influence to people based on prior relationships.”

“There’s no question there is grounds for an investigation at the federal level and at the state level,” said Stephen Spaulding, special counsel for public policy at the nonpartisan nonprofit Common Cause. “The question is we’ve got this one tape, but how many other people received this call?” Spaulding said. “How many state legislatures received this call? What other secretaries of states, election officials received this call? Who else in the White House was involved?”

“Republican lawmakers in a variety of states are using the president's lies as justification for making voting harder and suppressing the vote,” Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at the nonpartisan voting rights group Common Cause, told ABC News. “Obviously we saw record turnout everywhere and part of that was because access to the ballot was expanded. And obviously nothing is perfect. We would want improvements and improvements should be made, with consultation with election officials and election security experts and advocates in the community, but that's not what we're seeing. What we're seeing is legislatures adopting the president's lies about there being problems with the election,” Albert added, referring to unsubstantiated claims about voting machines changing votes, fraudulent signature matching processes and other baseless claims promoted by the president.

“You’ve got election officials all over the country and national security officials saying that it was a clean election and the effort to have an unnecessary investigation is just one to kowtow to the base and the president,” said David Vance, a spokesman for the watchdog group Common Cause.

Paul S. Ryan, the vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, came to the same conclusion, telling me, "Federal campaign finance law has only minimal 'truth in advertising' requirements." But Ryan added that the Justice Department "has in recent years begun prosecuting so-called 'scam PACs' for violations of criminal wire- and mail-fraud statutes based on representations made in political fundraising solicitations.... It's certainly possible that the DOJ could investigate President Trump for fraudulent political fundraising in the new year."

Regardless, Perdue's stock trades remain troubling, said Beth Rotman of the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause. “It looks terrible if people are coming out of sessions of Congress and getting wealthy on their own at a time when everyday Americans are suffering,” Rotman said.