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Today, Common Cause called on the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately begin an impeachment investigation in response to White House non-cooperation and stonewalling of any attempts to investigate past and current potential criminal conduct or wrongdoing by President Trump or members of his administration. In new a detailed report that will be sent to every member of the House, the nonpartisan government watchdog makes the case, and stresses the need, for the impeachment inquiry. 

The evidence released today by the Department of Justice (DOJ) by order of a judge strongly suggests that Donald Trump violated campaign finance laws in the closing weeks of his presidential run in 2016. Previously we had only Michael Cohen’s word that Trump had committed felony campaign finance violations through his direct involvement in hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, but now we have extensive evidence from the DOJ to back it up. We also learned for the first time that 2016 Trump campaign press secretary Hope Hicks was also aware and involved in $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep her from revealing an affair she allegedly had with the Trump—implicating her in campaign finance crimes.

Today, Common Cause is launching a new effort to ensure voters’ right to know where presidential candidates stand on practical solutions to the challenges facing our democracy. The Our Democracy 2020 campaign will focus getting every presidential candidate in the Democratic and Republican primaries to respond to a 17-question survey and inject the high priority conversation on the need for democracy reform in the presidential campaign. 

Today, Common Cause urged Special Counsel Robert Mueller to testify publicly before Congress so that the American people can hear in his own voice of the gravity of his findings and of the ongoing threat to the integrity of our elections from hostile foreign powers. The open letter to the Special Counsel emphasizes that very few Americans have had the time to read the dense and complex 448-page report and none have seen the underlying documentation behind the “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.”

Donald Trump’s official endorsement of the super PAC America First Action as the sole “approved” outside group of the President fully validates Common Cause’s 2018 Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaints that the President and the groups are violating federal campaign finance laws. Donald Trump’s official endorsement of the super PAC America First Action as the sole “approved” outside group of the President fully validates Common Cause’s 2018 Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaints that the President and the groups are violating federal campaign finance laws. Today, Common Cause supplemented its original complaints to include President Trump’s illegal solicitation of funds for the super PAC.

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.