Richard Painter

Painter has said, "Donald Trump’s promise to bring coal mining back to the U.S. is disingenuous. We need to move forward and expand the creation of clean jobs across the state." He supports creating these jobs by expanding tax credits that can help grow solar energy farms across Minnesota. Painter believes that investing in clean energy will increase jobs in all areas of processing, such as installation, manufacturing, sales and distribution, and project development.

A longtime Republican and self-described centrist, in 2018 Painter ran for the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party nomination for U.S. Senate, challenging recently appointed Senator Tina Smith. Smith defeated Painter in the primary by a wide margin.

In March 2018 Painter announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to run for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, saying he was unsure whether he would seek office as a Republican, Democrat, or independent. In April 2018 he announced that he would run as a Democratic (Minnesota DFL) candidate in the primary against the incumbent Senator Tina Smith. Painter finished a distant second, with 14% of the vote to Smith's 76%.

In May 2017 Painter compared the Trump administration with Nixon's scandals, saying, "Nixon may have been a crook, but at least he was our crook. He wasn’t a Russian agent!" In 2018 he said, “We know there was collusion.” In early 2019 Painter told German newspaper Deutsche Welle that the indictment of Roger Stone was "evidence of collusion between high-ranking officials in the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks to obtain documents stolen by the Russians in the 2016 election."

In January 2017 CREW filed suit against President Donald Trump for failing to sell off certain assets and place others in a blind trust. Painter, vice-chairman of CREW, stated, "If Obama had tried that, we would have impeached him in two weeks." CREW alleges that certain foreign payments that Trump receives are in violation of the U.S. Constitution's emoluments clause. The case was dismissed by the district court, which found that the plaintiffs lacked standing; CREW's appeal is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Painter was a longtime Republican, saying in 2017: "I've been a Republican for 30 years. There's no way that I would want to see the Republican Party stand up for covering up for Russian espionage and whoever in the United States has been helping the Russians. It's going to be a disaster for the Republicans. It's going to be a disaster for our country." In criticizing Trump and his administration, Painter said, "We are well past the point where we were in 1973 (Watergate) with respect to clear evidence of abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and other illegal activities."

Painter has been a member of the American Law Institute since 2004. In March 2016 he wrote in The New York Times that if President George W. Bush had had the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice during his last two years in office, with a Democratic-majority Senate, Bush would have chosen Judge Merrick Garland (who was ultimately nominated by President Obama on March 16, 2016) as a consensus nominee. William K. Kelley, who was deputy counsel to President Bush from 2005 to 2007, disagreed that Bush might have nominated Garland under such circumstances.

In December 2016 Painter replaced David Brock as vice-chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). As of May 2017 he is the S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

In July 2015 Painter was diagnosed with shingles and Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2, which left his face partially paralyzed.

Painter's wife, Karen Painter, is a professor of music history at the University of Minnesota. They have three children, and have lived in Minnesota since 2007.

From 2005 to 2007 Painter was the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. He is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump. Painter has been affiliated with the Campaign Legal Center, a left-leaning group that is a frequent critic of the Trump administration. Throughout 2017 he was involved in the CREW lawsuit against Trump, CREW v. Trump.

Painter was the Guy Raymond and Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law from 2002 to 2005 and the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration from 2005 to 2007. Upon leaving the White House, he returned to teaching, at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Painter received his B.A. in history summa cum laude from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. At Harvard Painter became politically active, speaking out against President Reagan's decision to send aid to the right-wing government in El Salvador and founding the Harvard Radcliffe Democratic Club newspaper Perspective. In 1982 he made his first appearance on national television during an episode of Firing Line with Reagan in which he called out Reagan's "reckless deficit spending and cuts to social programs". During the 1984 presidential election Painter was the chair of Harvard Students for Walter Mondale.

Painter describes himself as a centrist, and has criticized the Republican Party's move to the right since 1980. He said he would not accept the support of political action committees, super PACs, or "dark money" organizations. He supports major investments in transportation and other infrastructure projects, and is critical of stadium subsidies. Painter also declared his opposition to the Trump tariffs, in particular those on steel and aluminum.

Richard William Painter (born October 3, 1961) is an American lawyer, professor, and political candidate. He is the S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota, and since 2016 has served as vice-chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a left-leaning government watchdog group.

Painter was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1961. He was raised outside Philadelphia, in Kansas City, Kansas, and in Champaign, Illinois. He graduated from St. George's School, Newport, Rhode Island.