House Democrats Squander the Opportunity of Trumpian Corruption
The Revolving Door Project, a Prospect partner, scrutinizes the executive branch and presidential power. Follow them at therevolvingdoorproject.org.
Donald Trump promised to “drain the swamp” of corruption in D.C., but is in fact running the most corrupt administration in American history. The border czar Tom Homan reportedly took tens of thousands of dollars in a CAVA bag. And while the Trump family has amassed around $5 billion in crypto wealth, the administration has dropped cases or reduced penalties in 60 percent of enforcement actions against crypto firms. Recent reporting from The New York Times suggests that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick may have violated ethics rules by promoting data center buildout that will enrich his family.
Stephen Miller recently sold shares in mining firm MP Materials at an elevated price immediately following a deal with the government (which may, worryingly, not even be a breach of our outdated and paper-thin ethics laws). The military recently signed a $620 million contract for drones from a startup that has never manufactured drones before, but does have Donald Trump Jr. on its board. Trump is even building a ballroom, named after himself, funded by corporate (likely tax-deductible) donations. He has also rebranded the United States Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace and the Trump-Kennedy Center, respectively. The latter move is in open violation of congressional statute, but that did not stop Trump goons from inexpertly slapping new text on the building so it reads, “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
In sum, across the government, Trump’s big-dollar donors are raking in all kinds of money or favors. Simply keeping track of it all requires constant work.
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The American people are noticing. All the way back in May, Navigator found that a 54 percent majority of Americans already believed that the Trump administration was increasing the level of corruption in Washington. Another poll released in August from the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that 65 percent of respondents believed Donald Trump was somewhat or very corrupt. In September, YouGov asked point-blank whether respondents thought the president would accept a bribe; 53 percent said yes. A whopping 73 percent said they believed a member of Congress would accept a bribe.
This would seem to be an opportunity for Democrats. Polling released at the start of August by End Citizens United found that a whopping 89 percent of voters think that tackling corruption should be a “somewhat or very big priority.” It also found that messaging and policy tackling corruption helped Democrats improve on the generic ballot. The ads practically write themselves: “Wonder why Trump hasn’t brought prices down or fixed any problems? Because he is running the government for himself and his billionaire cronies exclusively.”
Alas, thus far Democrats’ House leadership has prioritized protecting their own corrupt incumbents and the party’s personal insider trading opportunities.
REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TX) VOTES against his party more than almost anyone, and in 2024 the Biden administration indicted him for alleged bribery and money laundering. Two of his aides pled guilty to conspiring to launder money. Yet when Trump pardoned Cuellar earlier this month—seeming to imply that the president had done so as part of a quid pro quo for Cuellar to switch parties—his Democratic peers quickly voted 17-7 to restore his ranking membership on the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Homeland Security. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also warmly welcomed the pardon.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) studiously ignores Cuellar’s awful record, but was outraged when the progressive Chuy García seemed to time his retirement so as to hand the seat to his chosen successor—a somewhat tawdry practice, of course, but not at all uncommon and not remotely close to what Cuellar is accused of doing.
Elsewhere, when Jeffries selected members to lead Democrats’ AI commission, he picked five members with deeply pro-AI sentiment and donor rolls. Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Ted Lieu of California are both among Big Tech’s most reliable allies in Congress. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is a former Microsoft executive who has taken millions from the PAC Fairshake, which has a sister PAC dedicated to electing pro-AI candidates that shares many of Fairshake’s funders and staff. This is, as the Prospect previously covered, at a time when AI and tech companies are engaging in monumental glad-handing with the Trump administration, including being among the biggest benefactors of the Trump ballroom.
Now, Jeffries and House leadership appear to be slow-rolling an effort to hold a floor vote on a bill to end congressional stock trading. If leadership whipped votes for the ongoing discharge petition to force a vote, it already has enough Republican signees to succeed. But, as the Prospect previously reported, there are both political and financial pressures pushing leadership the other way. Members in leadership see their stock portfolios outperform other congressmembers’ by nearly 50 percent, and congressmembers’ portfolios already handily outperform those of the general public. Some sources had indicated that leadership might prefer not to solve the problem so that a ban is something that can be promised in midterm campaigns.
Now, additional reporting has Jeffries pushing both representatives and outside advocates to back a separate discharge petition along party lines that Democratic leadership is pushing, as an attempt to undercut the bipartisan effort. If Democrats kill a realistic bipartisan chance to tackle real corruption, with an overwhelmingly popular policy, it leaves them with a distinct stench of corruption, undermining any future attempts to press the advantage on Trump’s mounting pay-to-play governance.
In order to run against corruption, particularly from the left, it is very helpful to have a clean ethics record. Asking voters to support candidates doing insider trading over those taking open bribes is not a strong argument. Many will throw up their hands, assume everyone in D.C. is equally corrupt, and vote on other grounds. Unfortunately, it seems requiring Democrats to keep their noses clean is too much for Jeffries and his lieutenants.
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