OP-ED: We need to restore the founders’ vision of government
Political corruption is not just payment for favors. Corruption can also be abusing the powers of government to benefit friends and punish enemies. Donald Trump appears to do both. This is classic authoritarian behavior summed up by Peru’s dictator Gen. Óscar Benavides; “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
Trump clearly has grievances, claiming that “no politician in history … has been treated worse or more unfairly.” Campaigning for his second term he talked about “retribution” and “revenge.” He believes that the criminal cases against him were simply made up by Democratic prosecutors out to get him. Indictments and convictions suggest that’s not true.
In his second term he has targeted people and institutions he thinks did him wrong, suing the media, stripping funding for PBS, NPR, and elite universities (Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton). The Trump Administration purged employees of government law enforcement agencies (FBI and Department of Justice) who worked on prosecutions of Trump or his allies (including the Jan. 6 rioters). He went after law firms who employed people he didn’t like, or defended people he didn’t like. These moves were driven by grievance, not by an effort to improve government operations.
Recently President Trump has had a falling-out with Elon Musk, who has criticized Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” To punish Musk for his disloyalty, Trump threatened to tear up his contracts with the government. This demonstrates the problem with the president using the government to fight personal grievances. If the contracts were good for the country before the dispute, why should they be torn up because Trump wants to hurt Musk? That won’t benefit Americans; it will only help fill Trump’s need for revenge.
Trump has also used the presidential pardon process to undermine the rule of law. Presidential pardons were traditionally processed systematically by the DOJ and given to people who had been unjustly incarcerated, whose penalties were excessive, or who had rehabilitated themselves into model citizens. That’s not to say presidential pardons have never been controversial: George H.W. Bush pardoned the participants in the Iran-Contra scandal, President Clinton infamously pardoned a Democratic fundraiser’s husband (Marc Rich), and Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter.
In his first term, Trump pardoned many political allies (Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort). Most pardons come at the end of the president’s term, but this time, Trump has not waited. Trump has used many of his pardons to help unrepentant supporters avoid punishment. Trump pardoned Todd and Julie Chrisley, reality TV stars who had defrauded $30 million from community banks and committed tax fraud. Their daughter Savannah is a strong Trump supporter and spoke at the Republican National Convention. She claimed her parents were “persecuted by rogue prosecutors in Fulton County due to our public profile,” implying that her parents were targeted unfairly by Fani Willis (who prosecuted Trump), even though they were prosecuted in federal court by a Trump-appointed district attorney, Byung J. Pak.
Trump pardoned Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive who stole from his employees and cheated on his taxes, but whose mother was a Trump fundraiser and attended a dinner that required a million-dollar donation to attend (a fact she included on the pardon application). Not only does the pardon overturn the work of the judge and jury, but it means Walczak won’t have to pay restitution to his employees.
Trump has undermined the government’s ability to bring white-collar criminals to justice. He made it legal for Americans to bribe foreign officials (by stopping the enforcement of the Corrupt Practices Act); eliminated the Public Corruption Squad at the Department of Justice (as well as the elite Public Corruption Squad at the FBI), and dramatically reduced the number of auditors at the IRS who focus on catching wealthy tax cheats.
Trump’s actions demonstrate a lack of support for “law and order.” The most egregious action was his pardoning of the Jan. 6 rioters, who, after hundreds of investigations and trials, were convicted in a court of law by a jury of their peers. He also ordered the DOJ to pay $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed while trying to enter the House chamber during the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, even as the police killed and wounded defending the Capitol have gotten nothing.
Eric Adams, the Democratic mayor of New York City, was being prosecuted for accepting bribes. Trump’s DOJ withdrew the prosecution (without prejudice, so it could be renewed, maintaining leverage) after getting a promise from Adams that he would cooperate with the Trump Administration’s immigration policy (which many Democratic mayors have refused to do). That sparked resignations from the lawyers who were supposed to execute the deal.
The United States was founded at a time when most countries were ruled by monarchs whose power was rarely constrained. America has thrived because we strive to treat each person equally, and believe the government is by and for all the people, not an elite class or a powerful leader. We need to restore that vision.
Kent James, of East Washington, has a doctorate in history and policy from Carnegie Mellon University.