President Donald Trump’s second term is defined by a sharp increase in corruption, Mona Charen, policy editor at the Bulwark, writes in a piece published Thursday.
“Is America open for corruption now?” Charen asks, “Unabashedly? Nakedly? Are we tossing aside not just our hard-won victories over infectious diseases but also the more than hundred-year battle against fraud, bribery, and graft?”
She notes that the country was rife with corruption in the 1800s, but reformers were able to fight back by passing transparency laws and stipulating that the civil service be independent. “And what do you know, it worked!” she writes.
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Trump is ringing in a new era of corruption, she adds. “In his first month back in the White House, Donald Trump is yanking the rug out from under open, honest government and signaling a complete reversal to a time of rank corruption. There may be no historical analogue to the level of corruption Trump is inaugurating.”
One example is “conveniently labeled,” Charen writes. Trump signed an executive order telling Attorney General Pam Bondi to stop enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a law that prevents U.S. companies from bribing foreign government officials. Trump also shut down units in the federal government working on foreign election interference.
“In the Trump era there is no pretense of disinterested administration of justice,” she writes. “It is all friends/enemies now. In the first Trump administration, the Justice Department proposed a national database to keep tabs on police-misconduct cases. Biden created it. Trump just ended it. Police misconduct, after all, may be useful in the coming months and years.”
In addition, he fired more than a dozen inspectors general at federal agencies. These people are responsible for investigating government abuses and conducting audits. “My own office launched inspections to cut waste, fraud and abuse in Native American schools,” writes fired Interior Department Inspector General Mark Greenblatt.
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“Sounds almost like what the DOGE is supposed to be doing, doesn’t it? If the DOGE project were even remotely sincere, Trump would be adding and empowering more IGs, not firing them. No, the presence of truly independent watchdogs is a threat to the Trumpist project, which is permitting agencies to be used to reward friends and punish foes,” Charen writes.
Elon Musk, she argues, plays a key role in this rise in corruption. “It’s hard to know where even to begin to describe the walking conflict of interest that is Elon Musk, who, with no transparency, is reportedly terminating or otherwise interfering in all manner of government agencies and offices, including many that touch on his business interests,” she adds.
“Trump’s America no longer fights the old foes of good government. It has hung a giant neon sign on our door proclaiming Open for Corruption,” she writes.