Tom Fitton Quotes

The emoluments clause is in the Constitution for a reason: We, as Americans, need to know that the president acts in our best interests, not his own self-interest.

Whoever is running the country should not be in the pay of a foreign interest. The best way is to see tax returns.

Donald Trump is having foreign leaders spend their money and our government spend their money on his properties. This is not the president of the United States helping create jobs for average Americans.

I came to office promising major ethics reform to end the culture of self-dealing. And today, that ethics reform is a law. While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over-the-top. I put it on eBay.

The first law I passed in my cabinet was a law eliminating the double salary for the prime minister and the ministers. I have a salary as member of parliament. I don't want a double salary. So it was a very important decision.

I think we'll go through a period when there's a revival of concern about ethics. After Watergate, we got the Ethics in Government Act, which has a lot of additional regulations.

If ethics is limited to financial conflicts of interest - that's really what I did in the Bush White House - that's a huge problem for me because Trump refused to sell his businesses. We don't know where he's getting his financing.

The American people need to know if public servants are operating in the best interests of the United States or the Kremlin.

I don't take private phone calls from the Trump Administration anymore.

Once Donald Trump takes the oath of office as president of the United States, the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution makes it clear that he cannot accept those favors.

I mean, Donald Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet. And so I do believe that he has set up a plan where the revenue or the profits that are coming to the hotel will be given directly to the Treasury.

Montanans elected me to the Senate to do away with shady backroom deals and to make government work better.

You can't run this damned county any other way ... than to say politics stops at the seaboard.

Honorariums are really dishonorariums. So long as they continue, public trust in Congress will sink even below its minimal level today.... Public officials should have only one paymaster: the Government. When the Government pays too little, the temptation to find other paymasters becomes far harder to resist.

And I think after the history of this first term is written and you look back, you're going to see that compared to other administrations or by any other standard you'd want to apply, that it has been an extraordinarily clean, corruption-free administration because the President [Nixon] insists on that.

As much as Americans like to talk about local control, so many state and local governments are still so corrupt and uninspired.

I am the only public servant and the only Mexican President ever who has made his finances public from before, during, and after public service.

Ethics and Washington DC. Are they mutually exclusive?

Washington concentrates on the ends of government and not the means. But the people are so disgusted by the means, that that is what they now are worried about.

Donations to political parties, candidates and elected officials should not be a means to gain personal or policy favours or buy access to politicians or civil servants…. Political parties, candidates and politicians should disclose assets, income and expenditure to an independent agency.

There will be more [political] scandals. There is too much money around …. It is legal for an American subsidiary corporation owned by the Chinese Army to make a major contribution to an American political party.

I've always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government's basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I've come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office.

Judicial campaign cash is burning a hole in the Constitution.

Anyone who believes in the essential role government can play in improving people's lives must also be the toughest critics of those who abuse the public trust.