U.S. Sen. Tom Udall On Treasury Department Ending Disclosure Requirements For Dark Money Donors

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) released the following statement after the Treasury Department ended a requirement that “dark money” groups must disclose their donors to the IRS:

“Secret, undisclosed money has flooded our electoral system and completely drowned out the voices of everyday citizens. Now, the Trump administration is making an already rigged system even worse — ending some of the limited disclosure we have about who is spending these unlimited sums of money to try to buy our democracy. It just got even harder to follow the money and shine a light on the billionaires and foreign interests that are trying to decide our elections with their wallets. This decision, made without any public input, comes at a time when Americans are already disgusted with money in politics. And it comes as special interests are gearing up to spend massive amounts of money to put their hand-picked nominee on the Supreme Court to protect the awful Citizens United ruling and other rollbacks of sensible campaign finance limits.

“Days ago, the Justice Department indicted 12 Russians for their role in interfering in a U.S. election. Then, the president went abroad and sided with the leader of the government that attacked our democracy – refusing to defend the integrity of our electoral system against foreign attacks. At a time when the American people are growing ever more concerned about the interference of foreign interests in their democracy, the Trump administration just moved to make it easier for those foreign interests to secretly influence our political system.

“The American people look to our political process – and decisions like these by the Trump administration — and see a system that is fundamentally broken. Congress needs to hold oversight hearings to demand answers about how the administration arrived at this outrageous decision and take action to reverse it. And we urgently need to pass reforms like the We the People Democracy Reform package and the DISCLOSE Act to increase transparency, end the stranglehold of big money in politics, and restore public faith in our democracy.”

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