It’s Time to Take a Hard Look at Corruption in the U.S. Government
Democracy depends on the foundational principle that the people entrusted with public power exercise it for the public’s benefit. Americans can disagree about taxes, immigration, healthcare, and the size of government while sharing an expectation that official decisions will not be shaped by opportunities to enrich the people making them.
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When that expectation breaks down, people question whether government decisions reflect public needs or private relationships. Businesses wonder whether competing on merit is possible, civil servants learn that raising concerns may carry greater consequences than ignoring them, and citizens become skeptical of decisions made by institutions they believe are serving someone else.
We need a more sustained examination of how corruption has been able to take root and spread in American government.
Individual misconduct deserves scrutiny, but so do the arrangements that make misconduct possible, the protections that fail to stop it, and the norms that have slowly become engrained in how business is done. For those of us who work on fraud prevention and program integrity, this is a necessary part of the work. We can’t adequately protect public resources without examining the conduct of the officials entrusted to manage them.
The Trump administration has presented several consequential examples that warrant this examination. Discussing them responsibly requires careful consideration of the evidence and what it does or does not establish. A financial conflict of interest may or may not be bribery, and a decision that weakens oversight is not, by itself, proof that the decision-maker intended to facilitate corruption. Those distinctions make scrutiny important and they help uncover the specific safeguards that each situation requires.
Consider the May 2025 dinner President Trump attended for leading holders of his cryptocurrency token. The promotion offered invitations to the top 220 holders, linking an opportunity to spend time with the president to investment in a venture associated with him. The White House defended the arrangement, citing the fact that Trump’s assets were managed by his children and that all applicable ethics requirements were adhered to. But the episode raises important an question: what safeguards should govern a president’s participation in a commercial promotion that offers access to him?
A prevention-oriented inquiry would ask how the promotion was reviewed, what information was available about participants, and who had the authority to require changes. It would examine whether existing rules meaningfully address the opportunity to obtain presidential access through a president-linked commercial venture. And it would ask what, if anything, the people who obtained that access received that others were prevented from receiving. This sort of inquiry would do more than address a single event, it would help uncover where safeguards are nonexistent or failing and in need of reform.
The aircraft offered by Qatar raises a different set of questions. In May 2025, the Pentagon announced that the United States had accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar for potential use as a presidential aircraft. The administration maintained that acceptance complied with federal rules. Legal and ethics concerns centered on foreign-government gifts and the potential for improper influence. The Pentagon announced that the recipient was the U.S. government, not the President. But even with that distinction, a substantial gift from a government with interests before the United States deserves independent scrutiny. The relevant questions include who evaluates the terms, how the public can assess the justification, and what restrictions govern the aircraft’s use and eventual disposition. Those questions can and should be investigated before concluding that influence was bought. Wrongdoing must not be assumed, but if the evidence finds it was present, meaningful changes must follow.
This obligation applies regardless of party. Former Democratic Senator Robert Menendez’s conviction and January 2025 sentence to 11 years in prison for bribery and related offenses provide a clear example of proven corruption involving a powerful public official. The standard should remain consistent whether the official is a president, a senator, an agency administrator, or a local procurement officer. We don’t need to manufacture equal numbers of examples from each party, we just need to follow the evidence, describe its limits, and ask the same questions, even when political control changes.
My work in fraud risk management has taught me to look closely at the environment surrounding misconduct. An opportunity may begin with broad discretion over a contract or grant. A private relationship may not be disclosed or reviewed completely, or it may never be connected to the decision it could influence. An exception may escape scrutiny, or staff may recognize a problem but feel unsafe raising it.
Over time, repeated failures impact expectations. Officials see what others have been permitted to do and feel emboldened to do it themselves. Outside interests learn where influence can be exercised and exploit that knowledge for private gain. Employees adjust their behavior to what leadership rewards or tolerates as a means of self-protection. This is how an institution can become more accommodating of abuse even when many of the people within it continue to act with integrity.
Legal compliance remains essential, but it’s insufficient. To prevent systemic corruption, we have to examine the vulnerabilities before they result in a prosecutable offense, and we have to honestly assess how well our safeguards are working. Disclosure is only effective if someone acts on material conflicts; a recusal needs to affect who participates in the decision in question; and an oversight recommendation needs an accountable response.
The practical work begins by following the public decision. Who exercised authority? Who benefited? What relationships existed between them? What safeguards applied, and could someone override them? Was the justification documented? Who could examine the decision independently, and what happened when concerns were raised?
We can answer those questions by reconstructing documented cases. Court records, audits, ethics determinations, and inspector general findings contain evidence about how abuses occurred and where the safeguards failed. And that inquiry can point the way toward specific needed reforms. Importantly, each reform should be judged by whether it can interrupt an identifiable mechanism of abuse with the aim of making safeguards more effective while allowing public officials to carry out legitimate responsibilities.
A sustained examination of public corruption and how it can be prevented is an urgent need. Americans should be able to expect that government serves the public interest regardless of who holds office. Earning that confidence requires institutions capable of identifying conflicts, challenging abuses, and correcting the weaknesses that allow them to recur.
Article first posted on GovIntegrity.