Wednesday on CNN’s “The Lead,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) announced he is introducing an ethics reform bill tomorrow which will require all presidential and vice presidential candidates to release their tax returns.
Sasse said, “I would say that, you know, in five different bills I’m going to introduce tomorrow, and I think a lot of them are going to make everybody mad. There are going to be a lot of oxes gored here because frankly, every election cycle, people talk a lot about draining the swamp, and nobody ever does it. It’s a campaign issue and governance issue and nobody is making progress and the American people have more and more distrust of this city. So I think there are things about the tax returns provision that has been a norm of American politics for decades.”
He added, “It’s never been a law, but everybody has always done it. This is the first time it hasn’t happened. The president said he would release them once he got the nomination and then once he got elected and then he said the people lost interest. I think there is a lot of distrust. He should release them. But on the other side of the aisle, there is going to be a bunch of Democrats frustrated as well. But Hillary Clinton as secretary of state had lots of public trust responsibilities and she has family members out there making speeches for six figures and enriching the Clinton Foundation at the same time. There’s just a lot—we need to do to drain the swamp and to tackle the culture of corruption that’s in Washington, D.C., because public distrust is only going to get worse in an era of more and more, not just Russia, but Chinese misinformation operations against Washington, D.C. and against public trust in America.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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