Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) and nonpartisan U.S. government ethics and accountability watchdog organization.^[3][4][5] CREW works to expose ethics violations and corruption by government officials and institutions.

Its activities include investigating, reporting and litigating government misconduct, requesting and forcing government information disclosure through FOIA requests, and filing Congressional ethics complaints against individuals, institutions and agencies.^[6][5] Its projects have included the publication of "CREW's Most Corrupt Members of Congress", an annual report in which CREW lists the people it determines to be the Federal government of the United States's most corrupt politicians. From 2005 and 2014 the annual reports named 25 Democrats and 63 Republicans.

History and mission

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington was co-founded in 2003 by Norman L. Eisen and Melanie Sloan in part as a counterweight to conservative watchdog groups such as Judicial Watch. Sloan initially ran the fledgling organization by herself; by 2007, CREW had 13 staff members.^[7][8]

The organization's website says it is "dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in government and public life by targeting government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests."^[6] The CREW mission statement has changed several times between 2005 and 2008 to de-emphasize its focus on personal litigation, dropping language that once read that CREW "differs from other good government groups in that it sues offending politicians directly" and that it "is a non-partisan legal watchdog group working to force our government officials to behave responsibly and ethically. CREW's mission is to use the legal system to expose government officials who betray the public interest by serving special interests. CREW aims to counterbalance the conservative legal watchdog groups that made such a strong impact over the past decade". It added that CREW "advances its mission using a combination of research, litigation and media outreach."^[9][10]

In 2015, the organization's mission stated, "CREW uses high-impact legal actions to target government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests [...] we work to ensure government officials — regardless of party affiliation — act with honesty and integrity and merit the public trust."^[11]

As of 2018, the organization's mission states, "Dedicated to fighting the influence of money on our political system. CREW uses aggressive legal action, in-depth research, and bold communications to reduce the influence of money in politics and help foster a government that is ethical and accountable. We highlight abuses, change behavior, and lay the groundwork for new policies and approaches that encourage public officials to work for the benefit of the people, not powerful interests."^[12]

Activities

According to the organization, its activities include litigation, FOIA requests, congressional ethics complaints, Internal Revenue Service complaints, Federal Election Commission complaints, and requests for investigation with government agencies.^[6]

CREW’s Most Corrupt list

Each year since 2005, CREW has published its "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" report. The 2012 election cycle saw 11 of the 32 lawmakers included in the last two reports either defeated or retiring.^[13] As of 2014, the list had named 88 individuals, 63 of them Republicans and 25 Democrats.^[14][15]

Family Affair report

In 2012, CREW released a report entitled Family Affair, which examined how members of Congress had used their positions to benefit themselves and their families. The report included 248 members of the United States House of Representatives, 105 Democrats and 143 Republicans, "about equal to their parties' proportional makeup in the House."^[16] Common practices that do not appear to violate laws or House ethics rules but still raise ethical questions^[17] include: paying family for congressional office and campaign work, collecting reimbursements from official US House and campaign budgets, earmarking to projects connected with family members, and charging interest on personal loans given to their campaigns.^[18][19]

FOIA requests for emails

In 2012, after learning that former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson had used an alias email account to conduct government business, CREW submitted an FOIA request for "records sufficient to show the number of email accounts of or associated with Secretary Hilary Rodham Clinton, and the extent to which those email accounts are identifiable as those of or associated with Secretary Clinton."^[20][21] The State Department's FOIA office says the request was closed in May 2013, but had no further information. CREW says it has not received any further information on the request since the State Department acknowledged receiving it.^[21][22][23]

Criticism of Continuing Appropriations Resolution

CREW raised questions about some of the content of the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014 (H.J.Res 59; 113th Congress). One controversial provision of the bill was section 134, which stated that "notwithstanding any other provision of this joint resolution, there is appropriated for payment to Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg, widow of Frank R. Lautenberg, late a Senator from New Jersey, $174,000."^[24] CREW protested the inclusion of this in the bill, since Lautenberg's assets in 2011 were over $57 million. The group questioned why this "death gratuity" was considered a "top funding priority".^[24]

Emoluments Clause

A legal team representing CREW (including Laurence H. Tribe, Norman L. Eisen, Erwin Chemerinsky, Richard Painter, and Zephyr Teachout) announced its intention to file suit in federal court in New York on January 23, 2017, on the grounds that President Donald Trump's business interests violate a provision in the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution by receiving payments from foreign government entities. The suit has asked the court to order Trump to stop receiving payments from foreign government via his hotels, golf courses, rentals and leased properties.^[25]

Presidential Records Act

CREW joined with the National Security Archive to challenge Trump's deletion of tweets as a violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1981.^[26]

Personnel

Norman L. Eisen, an attorney specializing in fraud, and eventual (in 2009) Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform in the White House, co-founded CREW in 2003. He became known for his stringent ethics and anti-corruption efforts, and for limiting registered lobbyists from taking positions in the administration.^[14][27]

Melanie Sloan served as CREW's first executive director. In August 2014 former Republican activist and current Democratic activist David Brock was elected chairman of CREW's board, and Sloan announced her intention to resign as executive director, pending Brock's hiring of a new executive director. Prior to co-founding CREW in 2003, Sloan served as one of more than 300 Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the District of Columbia from 1998 to 2003 after having worked for congressional Democrats John Conyers, Charles Schumer, and Joseph Biden.^[28] Mark Penn, pollster for Bill Gates, Tony Blair, both Bill and Hillary Clinton, also became a director and vice president at CREW.^[29]

Brock was elected as CREW's board president after laying out a broad plan to turn the organization into a more muscular organization. Along with Brock, consultant David Mercer and investor Wayne Jordan joined CREW's board of directors.^[14][30]

Noah Bookbinder, a former Justice Department prosecutor and Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee, was named Executive Director and assigned to head up CREW in March, 2015.^[31]

Allegations of partisanship

CREW operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit prohibited from engaging in partisan activity. In 2010, Ben Smith of Politico described CREW's founding in 2003 as "one of a wave of new groups backed by liberal donors" and called CREW "a vehicle for assaults on largely – but not entirely – Republican targets".^[32] But a 2010 Associated Press story stated that CREW "has a history of targeting members of Congress representing different races, philosophies and both major parties."^[33]

Writers for the Washington Post have called CREW a "nonpartisan watchdog group",^[34] and a "liberal watchdog",^[35] while Fox News has called it "a liberal-funded watchdog group",^[36] and the New York Daily News has described it as "nonpartisan".^[37] The New York Times has called CREW a "liberal government watchdog group",^[38] while U.S. News & World Report calls it "nonpartisan".^[39] In a report specifically about CREW, the Chicago Tribune noted the group "calls itself nonpartisan, but progressive", and employs staff from both Republican and Democrat administrations.^[40]

U.S. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) charged that CREW was "maliciously false" and "partisan hacks" in calling him corrupt in 2005. The Billings Gazette reported that CREW defended itself:^[41] Naomi Seligman, the group's deputy director, said "We've gone after a fair number of Democrats, even in this study" [and Burns] "should be answering the charges, not slinging charges."

In 2006, Congressional Quarterly reported, "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has taken aim almost exclusively at GOP members of Congress. Since its founding in 2003, it [helped] investigate 21 lawmakers, only one of them a Democrat" (Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, in a complaint that also targeted Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), then Senate Majority Leader).^[42][43] A report by McClatchy News Service called CREW "a Democratic-leaning watchdog group".^[44]

In 2007, Ms. Magazine quoted longtime Democratic pollster Celinda Lake as saying, "Corruption was a top issue in the [2006] midterm elections, and CREW was critical to the Democrats' success. The fact that they were bipartisan and had created this dirty-dozen list of corrupt politicians really helped people process that these politicians were acting well outside the norm."^[7]

The journal Broadcasting & Cable described CREW's former chief legal counsel, Anne Weismann, as "a Democrat-recommended witness and so the closest to an administration defender".^[45] In April 2011, CREW was described as "left-leaning" by the Chicago Tribune and Lexington Herald-Leader.

When asked in 2014 if CREW would continue pursuing complaints against Democrats, Brock responded, "No party has a monopoly on corruption and at this early juncture, we are not making categorical statements about anything that we will and won't do. Having said that, our experience has been that the vast amount of violations of the public trust can be found on the conservative side of the aisle."^[14]

Roll Call article

Roll Call reported in January 2008 that CREW files most of its complaints against members of Congress, and "all but a handful ... have targeted Republicans". The article stated that CREW had issued press releases against Democrats but had usually not filed complaints against them, with the exception of now former Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), a conservative Democrat.^[9] CREW defended itself to Roll Call:

"CREW is a nonpartisan organization that targets unethical conduct", [Deputy Director Naomi] Seligman wrote... "Now that the Democrats are in power, they will have opportunities for corruption that were previously reserved to Republicans and it is likely we will see more Democratic corruption."

After the article was published, CREW stated that it was "baseless" and "omitted key facts". CREW suggested the Roll Call reporter had been prompted by a conversation with Landrieu, the target of a recent CREW lawsuit at the time.^[46]

Funding

Roll Call reported that CREW doesn't disclose its donor list, and quoted former Deputy Director Naomi Seligman as saying that "donors play no role in CREW’s decisions as to the groups or politicians we target."^[9] Donors to CREW have included such groups as Democracy Alliance, Service Employees International Union, the Arca Foundation,^[47] and the Gill Foundation.^[9][48][49]

In January 2012, Democracy Alliance dropped a number of prominent organizations, including CREW, from their list of recommended organizations to receive donations. Support was withdrawn because these groups are more apt to work outside the Democratic Party's infrastructure.^[50]

See also

• Campaign for Accountability
• Center for Effective Government
• Government Accountability Project
• Project On Government Oversight

References

External links

• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, official site
• "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Internal Revenue Service filings". ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.