48 Quotes by Richard Painter

I think there is an overwhelming support for campaign finance reform, and that includes conservatives and Republicans. Where the problem is is with the leadership; with the politicians who are benefiting from the big campaign contributions, and the dark money in the electioneering communications and so forth.

Well, the problem is that when you mix discussion of official United States government business with discussion of your personal business, you can tread dangerously close to the bribery statutes.

Criminal conspiracy requires not only that the conspirators know that a crime is going to be committed, but that they knowingly intend to help each other commit the crime - and then commit certain overt acts in connection with that conspiracy.

Here is where you get into the danger zone, when the government official starts talking about U.S. government business and then also talking about what personal business favors they might want. And when the conversation goes down that road, it does risk crossing the line into solicitation of a bribe.

I'm out of the Republican Party. I'm fed up.

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.

I am not going to apologize for my service to the country.

I tried to salvage the situation with the Republican Party for a long time. We've had for decades a departure from the fundamental values of the Republican Party and from America.

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.