On October 31, 2016, following FBI Director Jim Comey’s unprecedented decision to inform Congress that the FBI was re-opening the investigation into former State Department Secretary and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, CfA filed a complaint with the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
On October 27, 2016, CfA asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate companies providing solar panels to residential homes. CfA’s request is based on a review of consumer complaints filed with the attorney general’s office suggesting false and misleading trade practices that may violate Texas law.
On October 25, 2016, CfA called on the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) General Counsel to investigate correspondence between Google Vice President Vint Cert and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler about a provision of a pending rulemaking proceeding. The communication appears to violate the FCC's rules requiring the disclosure of ex parte communications.
On October 19, 2016, CfA joined 15 other organizations and ethics experts in calling on the presidential candidates to adopt an ethical code of conduct for their transition teams.
On October 4, 2016, CfA called on the White House to develop a more robust ethics program in light of the numerous meetings between former Google executives who became White House officials and their former colleagues.
On September 30, 2016, CfA called on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to improve its ethics enforcement program. Documents published by the Google Transparency Project reveal that top NHTSA officials were in frequent contact with Google executives while working on federal guidelines for self-driving cars.
On September 26, 2016, 37 organizations signed an open letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, urging McConnell to reject any poison pill language in budget legislation that would prohibit the Securities and Exchange Commission from strengthening corporate disclosure laws by requiring transparency of secret political spending.
On September 19, 2016, CfA sent a letter to Sen. Robert P. Corker (R-TN) asking him to recuse himself from the hearing scheduled by the Senate Banking Committee for Tuesday, September 20.
On September 15, 2016, CfA sent a second letter to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting an investigation of Donald Trump for failing to accurately disclose his finances in connection with his presidential campaign. CfA’s new letter follows Newsweek’s revelations that Trump failed to disclose receiving millions of dollars from his extensive contractual relationships with overseas businesses. In August, CfA called on DOJ to investigate Trump for apparently vastly overstating the value of his golf course empire on his financial disclosure forms.
Following more than two months of stalling by the Utah Commission for the Stewardship of Public Lands, CfA formally requested that the commission immediately release the findings of its internal investigation into abuse of taxpayer funds by attorneys and consultants the commission hired to study the feasibility of forcing the federal government to relinquish 31 million acres of Utah’s public land.