Legalizing Corruption
The 47th President had a busy Monday.
CBS News (“Trump ousts director of Office of Government Ethics“):
President Trump on Monday removed the director of the Office of Government Ethics, the independent agency responsible for overseeing ethics rules and financial disclosures for the executive branch.
“OGE has been notified that the President is removing David Huitema as the director of OGE,” the office said in a notice on its website. “OGE is reverting to an Acting Director.”
Huitema was appointed to a five-year term by former President Biden. He was confirmed by the Senate in November 2024 and sworn in on December 16, 2024. The office’s website initially listed Shelley Finlayson as its acting director. Finlayson has been at the agency since 2006, serving most recently as chief of staff. But Mr. Trump signed a document Monday evening tapping Doug Collins, a Republican former member of Congress and current Department of Veterans Affairs secretary, to be the acting director of OGE
The vagueness of the timeline of Huitema’s appointment raised a red flag. But, no, he was not a lame duck appointment. Far from it. His Wiki page notes that he was nominated September 5, 2023—fourteen months before the election—but not confirmed by the Senate (on a purely party-line vote) until November 14, 2024. It appears that he has been in government service since 2006 (i.e., the second term of George W. Bush) in various legal advisory roles. In short, there’s just no reason to think he is some sort of partisan hack.
The move to oust Huitema comes two weeks after Mr. Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general from their roles as watchdogs without explanation, and as Mr. Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency task force have upended multiple government agencies.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
OGE collects both confidential and public financial disclosures, as well as ethics agreements and other forms from government officials, from the president and vice president to high-ranking appointees and Cabinet nominees. The office works to identify and prevent conflicts of interest.
“The primary mission of the executive branch ethics program is to prevent conflicts of interest on the part of executive branch employees, by working to ensure that they make impartial decisions based on the public interest, serve as good stewards of public resources, and loyally adhere to the Constitution and laws of the United States,” OGE’s mission statement reads.
Six months into Mr. Trump’s first term in 2017, Walter Shaub resigned as the head of OGE, saying the Trump White House abandoned the “norms and ethical traditions of the executive branch that have made our ethics program the gold standard in the world until now.”
Good government groups raised concerns about the removal of accountability officials at government agencies without explanation.
AP (“With firings and lax enforcement, Trump moving to dismantle government’s public integrity guardrails“):
In the first three weeks of his administration, President Donald Trump has moved with brazen haste to dismantle the federal government’s public integrity guardrails that he frequently tested during his first term but now seems intent on removing entirely.
In a span of hours on Monday, word came that he had forced out leaders of offices responsible for government ethics and whistleblower complaints. And in a boon to corporations, he ordered a pause to enforcement of a decades-old law that prohibits American companies from bribing foreign governments to win business. All of that came on top of the earlier late-night purge of more than a dozen inspectors general who are tasked with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse at government agencies.
It’s all being done with a stop-me-if-you-dare defiance by a president who the first time around felt hemmed in by watchdogs, lawyers and judges tasked with affirming good government and fair play. Now, he seems determined to break those constraints once and for all in a historically unprecedented flex of executive power.
“It’s the most corrupt start that we’ve ever seen in the history of the American presidency,” said Norm Eisen, a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic who was a legal adviser to Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment.
“The end goal is to avoid accountability this time,” said Princeton University presidential historian Julian Zelizer. “Not just being protected by his party and counting on the public to move on when scandals or problems emerge, but this time by actually removing many of the key figures whose job it is to oversee” his administration.
Zelizer added: “It’s a much bolder assertion than in his first term, and if successful and if all these figures are removed, you’ll have a combination of an executive branch lacking independent voices that will keep their eye on the ball and then a congressional majority that at least thus far isn’t really going to cause problems for him.”
To some degree, Trump’s early actions reflect a continuation of the path he blazed in his first term, when he dismissed multiple key inspectors general — including those leading the Defense Department and intelligence community — and fired an FBI director and an attorney general amid a Justice Department investigation into his ties between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.
This time, though, his administration has moved much more swiftly in reprisal against those he feels previously wronged him — or still could.
CNBC (“Trump signs order pausing enforcement of foreign bribery ban“):
President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to pause enforcing a nearly half-century-old law that prohibits American companies and foreign firms from bribing officials of foreign governments to obtain or retain business.
“It sounds good, but it hurts the country,” Trump said of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, as he signed the order at the White House.
“Many, many deals are unable to be made because nobody wants to do business, because they don’t want to feel like every time they pick up the phone, they’re going to jail,” Trump said, referring to U.S. anti-corruption efforts.
A White House official told CNBC, “A pause in enforcement to better understand how to streamline the FCPA to make sure it’s in line with economic interests and national security.”
The pause in criminal prosecutions under the FCPA is being implemented to avoid putting U.S. businesses at an economic disadvantage to foreign competitors.
The FCPA’s intent is in part to prevent American firms from fueling rampant public corruption that undermines the rule of law in many parts of the world. Over time, the FCPA’s rules have grown into bedrock principles of how American businesses operate overseas.
The FCPA became law in 1977, barring all Americans and certain foreign issuers of securities from paying bribes to foreign officials. The law was amended in 1998 to apply to foreign firms and people who caused such bribes to take place within the United States.
The broadly written law applies not only to direct bribes that are paid, but also to bribes that are offered or planned or authorized by a company’s management.
NYT (“Justice Dept. Tells Prosecutors to Drop Federal Corruption Case Against Eric Adams“):
The Justice Department on Monday told federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. It claimed his indictment last fall came too close to the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary and limited his ability to cooperate with President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The move came after Mr. Adams, a Democrat running for re-election, had made repeated overtures to Mr. Trump. The mayor met with Mr. Trump near his Mar-a-Lago estate last month in an unusual display of political — and perhaps personal — outreach. Then he attended Mr. Trump’s inauguration and told reporters he would not publicly criticize the president. The request to drop the charges raises urgent questions about the administration of justice during Mr. Trump’s second term and the independence of federal prosecutors.
In a memo sent to prosecutors Monday evening, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, Emil Bove, ordered the government to restore Mr. Adams’s security clearance, and accused the former Manhattan federal prosecutor who charged Mr. Adams of having done so for political reasons, though he offered no evidence.
NPR (“Trump pardons disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich“):
President Trump has pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted of corruption-related crimes, including trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat vacated by former President Barack Obama.
Blagojevich served as the state’s governor from 2003-’09. It was a political saga toward the end of his time in office.
In 2008, federal prosecutors accused Blagojevich of turning Illinois’ government into a moneymaking operation for himself by trying to, among other things, shake down a children’s hospital and racetrack owners. When prosecutors charged Blagojevich with corruption over the Senate seat, they presented as evidence a profanity-filled telephone conversation he had that was secretly recorded by the FBI.
“I mean, I’ve got this thing, and it’s [expletive] golden. And I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing,” Blagojevich said.
He argued that he simply engaged in political horse-trading, and he went on a national publicity tour to proclaim his innocence.
Blagojevich was impeached and ousted as governor in January 2009 and then indicted that March. The following year, he appeared and was booted off Donald Trump’s reality TV show, Celebrity Apprentice.
Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 and later sentenced to 14 years in prison. He served eight years, his time behind bars cut short after President Trump commuted Blagojevich’s sentence during his first term in office.
Many leading Illinois Democrats and Republicans criticized the move. The then-chairman of Illinois’ Republican Party said in a statement that in a state where corrupt machine style politics is all too common, it’s important that those found guilty serve their prison sentence in its entirety.
After he was released from prison, Blagojevich and his wife, Patti, held a news conference. He was a freed political prisoner, calling the criminal justice system both broken and unfair.
“We want to express our most profound and everlasting gratitude to President Trump,” Blagojevich said. “How do you properly thank someone who has given you back the freedom that was stolen from you?”
The former Democratic governor also declared himself a “Trump-ocrat.”
President Trump said he was granting Blagojevich a full pardon. He called Blagojevich’s sentence a “terrible injustice” and he called the former Illinois governor, a nice man.
These stories seem vaguely connected but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Drain the Swamp, indeed.
Somehow, from Trump, this sounds like a confession by way of a projection, on the path to exoneration, but never, ever expiation.
Hey, as long as I don’t have to go shopping and hear Spanish spoken or see a masculine person dressed as a woman, it’s totally worth it! A return to a 19th century society naturally includes 19th century GDPs, life expectancies, and segregation. You gotta break a couple $30 eggs to make an omelette, doncha know…
@Daryl: Real swamps get a bad rap. They’re actually critical and productive ecosystems.
I’d prefer to say, “lance the boils with red hot needles”.
Absolutely sickening. There is no legitimate justification for this, at all.
Most corrupt administration EVER. What he’s doing is clearing the path for open corruption–mostly in the form of bribery, I’m sure.
@Jen: If only we had a media that could spin up outrage 1/10th as well as the GOP propaganda machine can spin up outrage over an email server. They even have the added advantage of events being true and appalling.
I am honestly curious to see if and when former Senator and gold bar afficianto Bob Menendez gets a pardon or commutation.
“Isn’t it ridiculous we allow our companies to bribe officials in foreign countries but not in our own?”
@Matt Bernius:
To my understanding, right now the anti-Menendez criminal factions of New Jersey–a few of whom worked on Robert Kennedy’s campaign for this very reason–have the upper hand in discussing pardons or commutations with Trump’s team. That is, there are many more in line in front of Menendez, and more than a few of them are also angling to let Menendez hang.
ETA: We are also talking about one of the most capricious Presidents in history, so who knows maybe Menendez will be ambassador to the UAE in 3 months time.
Leaving politics aside there is an interesting discussion to be had about the bribery policy.
@Fortune: “Leaving politics aside there is an interesting discussion to be had about the bribery policy.”
Is there? If so, maybe you should kick it off, since no one else is. Tell us what you find so interesting about the bribery policy and I’ll bet a lot of posters here will respond seriously and attempt to engage you in that interesting discussion.
So what is it? What’s interesting here?
@Fortune:
If you are pro-bribery, I suppose.
We know President Doughboy is an enthusiastic supporter.
@wr: @wr: OK, but I think my raising the discussion will prevent anyone from engaging in the actual argument.
Anyone who has does business overseas knows in some countries you simply can’t get through customs, get permits, etc. without bringing gifts. Border guards may not take cash, but duct tape can get you across any border. (You can’t bring a lot of tools on airplanes anymore. If you’re shipping something, you’ll have to give away half your hand tools.) Cash is expected for higher government officials. Companies may get around bribery laws by agreeing to hire “local security”.
China is corrupt but in a more institutional way. I’ve never heard of Chinese officials accepting bribes, but you’re legally required to send projects to Chinese companies or share ownership. In most other parts of Asia and I think all of Africa, a company that’s trying to do business is competing against companies from other countries which may be allowed to openly pay bribes.
I’m not talking about influencing countries’ policies, and there are banking issues and anti-terrorism laws to deal with. I’m not arguing that bribery is a panacea, only that the subject has a lot of sides.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“Leaving politics aside, there’s a case to be made for rape.”
“Leaving politics aside, there’s a case to be made for assault with a deadly weapon.”
“Leaving politics aside, there’s a case to be made for arson.”
“Leaving politics aside, there’s a case to be made for defamation.”
“Leaving politics aside, there’s a case to be made for murder.”
“Leaving politics aside, there’s a case to be made for treason.”
@Fortune:
I can’t actually tell what it is you are arguing at all. Are you arguing that those systems you describe are good and worthy of consideration here? You’ve provided many examples of what bribery looks like in other countries, but you don’t seem to be taking any position. In the past, when people have wrongly misinterpreted your position, you’ve gotten quite upset. It would be helpful to be clear with what your position is.
I’ll go first: the systems you describe are all much less efficient than a law-and-order system, and that the things that slow down our system–namely, local regulations and environmental policy–are better addressed through policy reform than adopting a culture of bribery.
A culture of bribery around projects tends to spread to the rest of the systems, such as judicial.
Minor nitpick: my understanding is that classic envelopes-of-money bribery is quite rampant in China.
@reid:
The mainstream media has been out in the first weeks of this administration doing their Locals at the Diner interview schtick. They (except Fox, of course) are having no trouble finding Trump voters who are already ready to say “I didn’t vote for THAT.”
Venezuelans who thought anti-immigration only applied to Mexicans and Haitians. Small business owners who thought the tariffs were a bluff. Policemen who thought the violent J6 protesters would stay in jail. There are abundant examples, but there’s a recurring theme – they didn’t believe it would be like this.
YMMV, but I think Harris/Walz had a very big megaphone and their campaign (including surrogates like Kinzinger, Cheney, Luttig, former security officials & cabinet members) was pretty full-throated about the unique threat that would be Trump 2.0 – now available with special immunity from SCOTUS. The media covered it – in the end, enough of the people didn’t believe them.
So, for my part, I’m going to target my ire not at the media generally, but specifically toward the rightist cowards who continue to say this is just politics and the moderates who said Harris was being shrill when she called Trump a fascist threat to democracy.
@Fortune: Well that surely is a List of Things. The Wiggles would be proud.
@Neil Hudelson: I haven’t seen anything about adopthing those policies at home, but allowing businesses to compete in those environments. I don’t know about China personally but I’ve heard they’ve been clamping down in recent years.
@Neil Hudelson:
I think it is important to add that a culture of bribery is not only inefficient, but grossly undemocratic. Only those with the means to bribe can prosper in such systems. This anti-democratic “side” of bribery is why the removal of government constraints on bribery is getting prioritized attention from Trump/Musk. (Politics aside my ass.)
@Neil Hudelson:
I don’t read minds. But I suspect he is simply citing examples of the world the way it is, not the way it should be. I see some rather childish comments on this thread. We aren’t in Kansas anymore. That bribery exists is not an endorsement, but an observation. And some of the comments are rich, given Joe and Hunter Biden.
@Scott F.: No argument here. While the mainstream media has too much of a habit of presenting “both sides” and sanewashing the right, which doesn’t help, I do think they have presented the facts decently. It’s a complex topic, but it’s just stunning that the general populace is not more outraged.
@Connor:
I agree on your take of Fortune‘s point. But Fortune didn’t invent this point and, to the extent, it’s worth discussing – pro and con – it’s not new. Congress did discuss it and democratically opted for not supporting “the world the way it is.” What is frustrating (and lawless) is the idea that a single president should get to come in and re-decide everything without regard to the prior democratically, Constitutionally decided position.
@Fortune:
I have worked overseas in a country where bribing government people was usual.
I was working for a very large American oil company that was required by U.S. law to abide by American laws regarding corruption.
Guess what? Doing business with Mr. Big Oil Company was more important to the government there than collecting bribes.
IOW, access to American technology expertise was more important than corruption.
BTW, this was a Muslim country but that was not a problem for Mr. Big Oil Company’s Jewish employees – another example of the power of U.S. laws.
It’s unfortunate the Trump is so determined to trash American “soft power.”
ETA: Doing bid comparisons was part of my job. Again, no hanky panky allowed. (Admittedly, mine were the technical bid comparisons, but I am pretty sure the commercial bid comparisons were also played straight).
@Fortune: So that’s what Jesus would do? Condone one’s own corruption as a justifiable response to the corruption of others?
Corrupt unto others as they would corrupt unto you. The missing commandment.
@Connor:
This is not an endorsement of the Bidens’ family dynamics, just an observation.
James Comer had the full investigative power of the House Oversight Committee for years and found… no finding of quid pro quo for impeachment, no criminal charges. All that “oversight” ending in nothing but allusions of what they called bribery. Even the felony charges against Hunter were gun purchase related and nothing approaching bribery. Maybe you can stop shouting “fire” when there isn’t even smoke.
Turns out it isn’t that easy to fabricate corruption out of thin air, even with dysfunctional family members. This kind of puts a lie to the whole “weaponized lawfare” BS from the Trumpists, doesn’t it?
I’m not moralistic. The city has some guys working on the sidewalks in front of my house, and my wife gave them some cookies. When my mom was in the hospital, my dad brought donuts for the nurses. Greasing relations via gifts or a eyewink quid pro quo is common. Can it create inappropriate power balances? Yes, but the lines are hard to draw. Outlawing direct bribery in international business creates the warm glow of righteousness we all love and incentivizes creative ways to curry favor.
@Connor:
A childish try at changing the subject, since it was Trump’s crime family that got a $2 billion Saudi bribe via the Kushners, not Joe and Hunter Biden.
By contrast, David Weiss’s special counsel witch hunt lasted nearly seven years and only got Hunter on a gun paperwork charge. Embarrassing. House Republicans’ own probe only got multiple alleged whistleblowers convicted of perjury for lying about the Bidens.
(Oh, we also got the macho antigay alpha bros of the right salivating over Hunter Biden’s dick pics. So there’s that too.)
I guess it’s possible the Bidens were swimming in all this obvious corruption that MAGA slaves swear of, only GQP officials were too stupid and incompetent to find it. When talking of the right, one must always hold out this possibility.
It’s a moot point that bribery has always existed; neither that nor But Hunter can mitigate Trump’s openly corrupt attempt to legalize bribes while pardoning openly corrupt Democrats like Adams and Blagojevich. It makes sense the only Dems that Trump sheep defend are those as slimy and unethical as they.
Sex crimes have also always existed and always will. Let’s hope the Musk administration’s next exec order doesn’t try to legalize or pardon rapists and pedophiles, as they already made Americans less safe pardoning 1,500 Jan 6 thugs. Given Trump’s praise of his best friend Epstein, and openly admitted lust for his own child (f***ing gross), we should be scared. He not like us.
@charontwo:
It’s one of two things explaining these extraordinary lapses of Trump and his advisors: sheer ignorance, or malicious intent.
The retreat from “soft power” policies and alliances will be very costly to this country. Shame that not enough effort was made, apparently, in educating our voting public on the value of strategic diplomacy, and that the benefit of “woke” is actual wakefulness.
@DK: “Let’s hope the Musk administration’s next exec order doesn’t try to legalize or pardon rapists and pedophiles”
I believe Hegseth has already started that in the military.
Trump has likely been asked to pay bribes in countries in which he has his tacky AF hotels, and instead of realizing this is awful and unethical, he’s instead tried to figure out how to implement it here. Beyond the obvious siphoning of his election funds and dodgy bitcoin nonsense, of course.
Grifters, one and all in this administration.
@Connor: Like i said to wr, it would have been better for the conversation if someone they trusted had brought it up. It went better than I expected though.
Jeff Tiedrich has a pretty good write-up on the Blago pardon and Adams dropping-of-charges on his blog.
Donald Trump has replaced the Rule of Law with the Rule of Because Fuck You, That’s Why
@Jen:
More likely, he wants to make it legal to bribe him.
@Fortune: “It went better than I expected though.”
Still don’t have a clue about your thoughts on the issue. I suspect if you’d actually put forth an argument instead of some kind of shopping list it would have gone better.
I was actually trying to bring you into the conversation that you claimed to be interested in, but as usual you danced away instead. You want people to talk to you, you got to talk to them.
@wr: I’m not advocating for a position one way or the other if that’s what you mean. I brought up some things to think about.
Connor should report his evidence to the Trump team of Congress since they cant seem to find any evidence of crime but he knows it exists. Anyway, this is the same GOP that had 8 (eight!) investigations of Benghazi! They didnt find anything so then they kept Lois Lerner hostage, until Trump won the 2016 election and then they dropped every last fuc*ing charge against her.
Also, in case you guys missed the Musk interview he said there is nothing bad going on because they are completely transparent. His people report everything they do on the DOGE site. So it’s the DOGE people monitoring the DOGE people. Yup, sounds like something we can totally trust.
Anyway, this may be the last time I post here since I am going to be too rich to bother. I have posted on my website about a new product that will make energy almost free. I plan on selling this to Musk for about $300 billion. Since I know that his standard is to believe anything that anyone posts on their website I am golden.
@reid: Well the fact that 6 corporations own 90% or so of the media in this country doesn’t help. Essentially a handful of billionaires deciding what stations and newspapers across the USA are showing/saying.
@Fortune:
I can’t speak for anyone else, so YMMV.
It has nothing to do with who raises the topic.
It is weird you think it has to do with trust. I do not care who wrote something, as long as there is a link for quotes and assertions of facts, and warrants for claims.
That’s it. You seem to think that you hold a privileged position in the minds of the commentariat. You do not.
I have suspicions about why you display this behavior. But they are only that–suspicions.
And I will note, yet again, that you have yet to express a standard for intellectual discussion. You have been asked, but you refuse to explain. Your choice, but with each day that passes without an explanation or meaningful engagement, the less ground you have for complaint.
Remember, I’ve been here for years, and there are others who have been here for far longer. When you criticized Steven the other day, you appeared to be unaware of just how much time, and effort he has spent in the past trying to get commenters to provide substantive commentary. Most of the time, he was patient far longer than most would have been.
So, when you offer a criticism that is not the case, it reveals that you are either working from bad faith, or have some other reason for your behavior. So, take the following as friendly, rather than adversarial:
You bellyache about us, but cannot countenance that maybe the problem is in your head.
As far as @Connor’s claim about childish comments, they are partially correct. Yes, I read comments here on almost every thread that induce an eyeroll. But it’s not as if Connor’s contributions are thought-provoking. They are mostly rants expressing things that one would find on Levin or Twitter. Long on anger; short on substance.
To pretend that the presence of eyeroll-worthy posts from some of the regulars is disconnected from the quality of GOP/Trump apologetics rises to the level of denial.
@Fortune:
And yet, you are — because the US stance against bribery has influenced countries’ policies. And even culture. Because most of the world really, really wanted to do business with the US. (Past tense.)
Interestingly, the IEEE went deeply into the same questions a couple of decades ago, when they updated their ethics code to explicitly oppose bribery. They had nice open discussions about the relative merits of participating in a baksheesh culture or not. And they came down on the side of “not”.
In a perverse way, Trusk’s position is at least consistent — if we’re going to make the US a worthless trade partner anyway, we no longer have any leverage to reduce corruption overseas. So why bother even trying?
@Kurtz: Beyond that, a freestanding comment about the state of reality in some settings doesn’t really constitute discussion or contribute much to one–assuming one is happening. But as I’ve noted before, Fortune and I live in two seemingly different realities, so I’m mostly trying to avoid this particular circus.
@Fortune: “I’m not advocating for a position one way or the other if that’s what you mean. I brought up some things to think about.”
I’m going to take one last try at this in the hope that you are sincere and simply not yet experienced in starting real conversations:
People are not going to start thinking about things simply because you’ve listed them. If I posted a message reading “Elephants. Jacuzzis. Eggplant.” people will glance it and move on, because there’s nothing here to engage with. We all know that elephants, jacuzzis and eggplants exist, and being reminded of that simply isn’t interesting.
Now if I posted a message reading “We should bulldoze Nebraska and turn the whole state into an elephant refuge,” I might get some response. (Obviously this is a ludicrous example, and people might flip by because I’m either not serious or I’m nuts — but it’ll work as a template…) People will want to engage — because I’ve put out an idea and readers will agree or disagree. There may be a poster who grew up in Nebraska and hates the idea of bulldozing it — or loves the idea, for that matter. There may be elephant-experts who will explain why the Cornhusker state (I think) is an excellent or terrible habitat for pachyderms. Who knows, the whole thing could go to a hundred comments.
But if I just typed “elephants,” there will be nothing. Because people won’t stop to think about things just because you want them to. You’ve got to engage them.