CONTACT: Jordan Libowitz
202-408-5565 | [email protected]

Washington—In response to President Trump’s executive order allowing a new path for pushing dark money into politics, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Executive Director Noah Bookbinder released the following statement:

“The president’s executive order appears to constitute a massive expansion of dark money in politics under the disingenuous pretense of protecting religious freedom. And what’s worse, the White House failed to immediately release the text of the order to the American people, potentially to hold off criticism until eyes shifted to Congress’s health care vote.

The order would eliminate longstanding restrictions on political speech by nonprofit organizations. If reports are to be believed, this policy would create a massive loophole for dark money, allowing unlimited sums of money to flow to religious nonprofit organizations for expressions of political views, with no disclosure of the source of that money. This executive order will harm our democratic process, in the name of fixing an alleged problem that there’s no evidence even exists.”