Former Clinton campaign staffer launches anti-Trump website to track conflicts of interest
A former Clinton campaign staffer recently launched an anti-Trump website as a way to publicly record and track the president-elect’s conflicts of interest, fearing they would otherwise fade into oblivion. Matt Ortega, who says he was the digital director of communications at Hillary for America, launched “corrupt.af” following the November election as a measure of political accountability.
“With all the headlines of very concerning conflicts of interest since the election, it was hard to keep track,” he told CBS News. “He owes millions to institutions now under the weight of his domestic and foreign policy agendas. His business empire will be used by anybody trying to gain favor while his children, running his business, seek to gain security clearances. He will be drawing six figures from the largest telecom company in the nation.”
Ortega also said that “the sheer number of Trump’s conflicts” warranted the use of the top domain level “.af”--instead of, say, “.com”-- as a play on the internet slang “AF”--an acronym that stands for “corrupt as f***.”
Ortega said he typically sees a spike in web traffic when he updates the website with what he describes as “brazen conflicts of interest.”
On Friday throughout the day, the URL wouldn’t load, which Ortega attributed to a “ton of traffic.”
For now, Ortega manages the website by himself, but encourages people to crowd-source and submit items they believe should be included on the site.
When the site is available, users see paragraphs with headlines like this: “Trump’s leading candidate for state, tied to Putin, with lucrative pension” and “Trump tweets ‘cancel order’ with Boeing minutes after article published.”
“We are going to be faced with the most-financially-compromised president in the history of our country,” he said. “He continues to demonstrate that he will use the office to enrich himself.”
Mr. Trump’s business and real-estate empire potentially pose real conflicts of interest for his new job as president. According to a May 2016 financial disclosure, the president-elect has ties to more than 500 business entities, some of which are located outside the U.S. He has yet to clarify how he intends to separate himself from his multi-million dollar organization, but he’s expected will hold a press conference next week to provide more detail. So far, he has said only that his children will manage his business operations.
