Media Center

Media outlets are reporting that a number of federal agencies are withholding information from Democrats in Congress and in some cases informing them that federal agencies will only provide information requested by committee chairs.

Donald Trump is charged with doing the people’s business, but by keeping his visitors logs a secret, the people will have no idea who he is doing business with at the White House. This move is just the latest example of a disturbing Trump Administration pattern of withholding from the public information regarding everything from the president’s personal business dealings and tax returns to his late night White House visitors like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. With unprecedented conflicts of interest for a U.S. President, Trump should be working to restore public confidence, and his abysmal public approval ratings, by making his Administration more transparent, not less so.

Common Cause members will be joining Tax Marches from coast to coast on Saturday to demand that President Donald Trump release his taxes. Tens of thousands of Americans are expected to attend more than 100 marches taking place across the country to express their outrage that the President refuses to release his taxes after promising repeatedly on the campaign trail to make them public. Every U.S. President since the 1960s, including Richard Nixon, has released their tax returns and none has had conflicts anything like Trump’s with his business holdings all over the globe.

As news breaks about Trump campaign officials embroiled in the FBI Russian investigation, local Common Cause activists began nationwide delivery of petitions to Members of Congress, urging them to support the formation of an independent commission to investigate the Russian government’s attack on the 2016 election. The deliveries of constituent signatures come in the wake of media reports late yesterday revealing that Trump campaign advisor Carter Page was under investigation by the FBI last summer resulting in the granting of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant by a secret court. In visits to district offices from Florida to Alaska and from Maine to Arizona, activists are emphasizing that the partisan atmosphere in Washington is too charged currently for a full and fair investigation by members of Congress.

The White House is going to increasing and troubling lengths to influence and undermine the investigations of possible coordination between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government. It is becoming increasingly disturbingly clear that the White House will do anything to try to change headlines President Trump doesn’t like. Instead of taking the Russian interference in the 2016 election seriously, President Trump, White House staff, and House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes are playing partisan games to try to distract Americans from the truth.

Rep. Devin Nunes has surrendered his own integrity and compromised that of the entire House Intelligence Committee. House Speaker Paul Ryan should immediately relieve Nunes of his chairmanship.