When a New York Times reporter asked President Trump about the lucrative business deals he is making while in office, he said: "I found out that nobody cared."
Well, he’s got that one wrong. We care. You care. Presidents should not use their time in office to make themselves richer.
Bombshell financial disclosures released by the White House revealed that Trump made at least $2.2 billion in his first year back in office. Around $1.4 billion of those earnings are from his family’s cryptocurrency business.
While you and your community have been struggling with an affordability crisis, the president has been using the power of his office to push policies that benefit his financial interests—and in an industry he has aggressively deregulated and promoted.
The year-to-year difference speaks for itself:
|
|
|
The government should be working for you. Not working to make President Trump richer.
It should be illegal for a president to use their position to expand their personal wealth, but right now it isn’t. For decades now, we at the Project On Government Oversight, or POGO, have raised the alarm about the gaping exemption in federal ethics laws that makes it possible for presidents and vice presidents to get away with what would otherwise be considered a criminal act. There is a fix: Congress can close the loophole. These conflicts of interest need to be the final straw.
You deserve to know for sure that all government officials, including the president, are acting in the interest of the American public and not in the interest of their own finances.
Our government’s shamefully weak ethics laws and enforcement can change tomorrow. But Congress needs to act. So join us in telling your representatives that you care about President Trump’s self-enrichment and they should too:
|
Your members of Congress must take this issue up the moment they are back from vacation. The public wants to see these loopholes closed for good.
Thanks for using your voice. This is an issue we will be forcing Congress’s hand on, so stay tuned to your inbox for more in the coming days and weeks about how we can keep up the pressure.
A government where officials work for you, not their portfolios, is possible, but only if enough of us say so now.
—POGO
|
|
|
|
|
|
