1. United States
2. Maine
3. Letter

Please support all of Rep. Jamie Raskin's anti corruption bills and amendments. Pardons should not be for sale! Rep Raskin has introduced several bills to shore up the essential guardrails that most Americans probably assumed already existed: Specifically that a president shouldn't be able to take money from the very people he pardons. Raskin proposes that a sitting president would be barred from accepting payments from anyone he grants clemency or appoints to a Senate-confirmed post — and those individuals would be prohibited from making such payments in return. Raskin's measures would shut down the kind of "pay-to-play" arrangement we have seen-- where a pardon or a plum job could effectively be bought. The legislation would also require the president to disclose to Congress any payment received from a person who was pardoned or given a federal appointment, putting so that such transactions would be exposed on the public record instead of concealed. These measures are part of Raskin's broader anti- Corruption program, which also includes the BLANCHE Act— targeting a "rampage of presidential profiteering." This introduced legislation is urgently needed. I am counting on you to uphold the constitution and the rule of law; that means blocking corrupt pardons, vindictive and retaliatory prosecutions, self-dealing and all other gambits where Trump seeks to set himself above the law.