Confronting Corruption

Across the political spectrum, the public wants action from politicians to rein in rampant self-dealing.

The journalist Michael Kinsley defined a gaffe as when a politician accidentally tells the truth. During his confirmation hearing to be attorney general, Todd Blanche blurted out about Donald Trump, “I’m his lawyer.”

Now the Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced Blanche’s nomination to the full Senate, despite the ample evidence of weaponization of the Justice Department under his watch. Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) made a great show of holding up the nomination due to their opposition to the flagrantly corrupt $1.8 billion fund to pay Trump’s allies, including, presumably, the January 6 insurrectionists.

Their faux rebellion led to a phony deal. John McLaughlin in the conservative National Review calls it “flimflam.” It leaves untouched the Justice Department’s pledge to shield Trump and his family from tax liability. Having been immunized by the Supreme Court from criminal accountability, he now is immunized from civil liability, too. All as his net worth grew by over $2 billion in one year.

The Trump era is drawing to a tawdry end. I think we haven’t been nearly outraged enough by the prosecution of a bystander for supposedly vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. Last week prosecutors confirmed to the court that in fact, a “botched” repair job by a no-bid contractor chosen by the president was the culprit.

Over and over, these politicized prosecutions crumble. It would be funny if it did not reflect an egregious abuse of power and impose real harms on people whose lives are turned upside down by these unfounded accusations.

After the wreckage, we need a reckoning. What comes next? How do we repair the institutions of self-government? Public concern about corruption runs deep. A CNN poll last week found that 64 percent of respondents think Trump “has gone too far” in “pursuing his personal business interests while serving as president.” But which party could be described as “the party that fights corruption”? Nearly half said “neither.”

Earlier this year the Brennan Center launched a new series of policy proposals: Solutions for a Stronger Democracy. “Congress should create a strong new government ethics agency,” we urged. “Today, enforcement of ethics rules is weak and sporadic. A single agency should enforce core federal ethics standards, including laws concerning conflicts of interest, gift limits, asset and income disclosure requirements for federal officials, and curbs on the use of federal resources for partisan political activities. It should be empowered to issue binding rules and to seek civil penalties and other relief against violators.”

The public strongly supports these and other reforms. According to a Brennan Center poll we released in June, a new ethics agency draws 81 percent support, including 75 percent of Republicans. Similar margins back reforms including a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and other misguided campaign finance rulings, and an end to undisclosed “dark money” in elections.

Now Senate Democrats have issued a strong anticorruption proposal along these lines. Last week Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) proposed the creation of a new Anti-Corruption Bureau. It would combine the work of several agencies under a new bipartisan commission with at least one independent member and expanded powers. It would also expand the range of penalties available to address corrupt conduct. And as a backstop if federal officials fail to adequately enforce the law, it would allow state attorneys general and private parties to sue corrupt officials under certain circumstances.

There are many good elements to Schumer’s proposal — and more ideas will no doubt be put forward. Most importantly, it suggests that politicians are starting to realize it is not enough to merely complain about corruption.

Where are the Republicans? They still could object to the Blanche nomination. And our polling shows that their voters want anticorruption reforms too.

Election year 2026 is shaping up as unpredictable. Voters are seething. They see big money as a major issue, deeply connected to government’s failure to work for them. Populist anger convulsed the Republican Party and is now shaking the Democrats. Lawmakers who want to keep their footing will need to put forward big ideas, concrete and memorable, or be overwhelmed by political tides.

Trump in 2016 upended politics promising to “drain the swamp.” Now his tenure is as murky and mottled as the Reflecting Pool. On Monday, Sen. Cornyn explained his switch to voting for Blanche. “There’s nothing we could do to rein in the president,” he shrugged. That’s bad law and bad policy. And increasingly, it looks like bad politics as well.

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