Adams case and other Trump moves threaten to open corruption floodgates, experts say
The leader of one watchdog group called the moves "the equivalent of putting up a neon sign telling foreign actors 'we are open for corruption.'"
In a series of unprecedented actions, President Donald Trump and his deputies have scaled back or eliminated the government’s tools to ferret out and prosecute corruption, including efforts by foreign actors to interfere in American politics, experts and former officials say.
The administration’s actions, which come after years of mostly bipartisan support for an anti-corruption agenda, have shocked former prosecutors and anti-corruption advocacy groups. They say the administration’s approach threatens to open the floodgates to a surge in corruption in the United States and beyond.
“In his first weeks in office, Donald Trump has taken unprecedented action to invite corruption in the federal government and to undermine the guardrails meant to protect against it,” said a former federal corruption prosecutor, Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit organization that says it works to expose corruption by government officials. “This is beyond troubling — it is an emergency,” he added.
On Monday, Trump and his administration unveiled three decisions that seemed to symbolize his approach to corruption cases.
That day, Trump signed an executive order pausing investigations and prosecutions of U.S. companies engaged in corruption in foreign countries under a 1977 law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
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