A campaign aimed at getting President Donald Trump impeached plans to file more than 200 public records requests on him and his son-in-law Jared Kushner's business dealings in an attempt to shed light on conflicts of interest.
The requests demanding records of Trump and Kushner's business interactions with government agencies and administration members' expenditures will be filed on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Day on March 16, the "Need to Impeach" campaign announced on Thursday.
Campaign founder and major Democratic donor Tom Steyer hired a team of two lawyers and three researchers to file the requests on the birthday of former President James Madison, a Founding Father and advocate for government transparency.
"This president entered office with more conflicts of interest than any other in history and it seems like the more you know the facts about one thing, the more you learn that you don't know about something else," the campaign's lead strategist Kevin Mack told Newsweek. "Every day, things break that sound worse than the day before."
Mack cited a CNN report on Wednesday that Department of Defense employees charged the government nearly $140,000 at Trump brand properties in the first eight months of his presidency.
"So we're subpoenaing every single federal agency to see how much money they've spent on Trump-owned properties," Mack said.
The FOIA requests will include any emails with federal business conducted through private accounts.
"Every single person across the country has a right to know if Donald Trump's private business dealings are intertwined with the federal government and whether taxpayers are footing the bill," Steyer said in a statement.
Other requests seek information on why the Securities and Exchange Commission stopped an investigation into Apollo Global Management a month after Kushner's family-run real estate company secured a $180 million loan from the financial company. The campaign also wants to know how much taxpayer money Kushner's Office of American Innovation has used, while it's unclear whether it has accomplished anything concrete.
Jared Kushner: a man of zero credentials and zero trustworthiness. He should have nothing to do with our national security, yet still gets a seat at the table. pic.twitter.com/l3V7kSv8Ax
— Need To Impeach 🍑 (@Need2Impeach) March 15, 2018
"Both Jared and Ivanka work in the administration," Mack said. "We think the public has a right to know about them."
Since it launched last October, the campaign has obtained signatures from more than five million Americans calling on Congress to begin proceedings to remove Trump from office.
While he has insisted he will not be running for office himself in 2018, Steyer has announced plans to spend $30 million to help Democrats win back control of the House, where any impeachment process would begin.
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A Los Angeles native, Jessica Kwong grew up speaking Spanish, Cantonese and English, in that order. Her journalism career started ... Read more
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