Common Cause/NY Responds to News About Trump Criminal Investigation and DA Vance

NEW YORK, NY (10/04/2017) (readMedia)-- In response to today's news story about a previously unreported, now concluded, criminal investigation into the Trump family by the Manahttan District Attorney, Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY issued the following statement:

"This is a story about the unhappy conjunction between money and politics, and special access. District Attorney Vance was correct to return Mr. Kasowitz's $25,000 contribution before meeting with him, but by providing special access anyway he has invited embarrassing questions about his conduct. We need to have more honest policy discussions about removing private money from the criminal justice system and replacing it with public financing of elections, to help pubic servants avoid suspicion."

The story reports that the Trump family lawyer, Marc Kasowitz met with DA Vance in 2012 and contributed $25,000 to his campaign. Although DA Vance returned the money before meeting with Mr. Kaslowitz, he continued to collect contributions from Kasowitz after shutting down his office's criminal investigation into the Trumps.