President Donald Trump’s ouster of Kimberly Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece this week reflected a belated recognition by the White House political team that corruption is a galvanizing issue in the midterms.
A Fox News poll released Wednesday indicates that corruption has become voters’ top concern, edging out inflation and gas prices. Six in 10 respondents said they’re “extremely concerned” about corruption.
The homestretch of this campaign season recalls the 2006 midterms when corruption also emerged as a top concern, personified by disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and two members who served prison time: Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Bob Ney. Once again, Democrats are gaining traction with independents by promising to check a Republican administration and conduct vigorous oversight of shady self-dealing if they flip the House. (Another unpopular war in the Middle East also hurt Republican fortunes that fall.)
The Fox News finding isn’t an outlier. An Economist-YouGov poll last month showed that most registered voters think Trump is corrupt. A Reuters poll in August revealed that almost 7 in 10 Americans — including about half of Republicans — believe Trump’s private business interests influence his presidential decisions.
Trump’s family and inner circle have grown wealthier while regular people struggle with inflation and high gas prices. The president reported more than $1.4 billion of income during his first year back in the White House, riches raked in from cryptocurrency, digital tokens and related partnerships. Top buyers of the $TRUMP meme coin have been invited to a gala with the president at his Virginia club on Nov. 22.
Trump has also stoked suspicions of venality by granting pardons to supporters and tariff exemptions to donors. The president’s family members have been striking real estate deals abroad. A Russian oligarch helped pay for festivities around Donald Trump Jr.’s destination wedding. After that was exposed, the president said his son paid back the gift.
Top House Democrats are preparing to launch investigations and issue subpoenas in January on the assumption they’ll be back in charge. Targets include Trump’s involvement with cryptocurrency and foreign deals; the president’s settlement with the IRS that shielded his family and businesses from future audits; and his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s business dealings while negotiating on behalf of the U.S. government.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) wants to create a new agency, called the Anti-Corruption Bureau, that would absorb the Office of Government Ethics, the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Special Counsel. The new entity would be led by seven board members, who would need Senate confirmation, and no more than three of them could come from either party. This entity has no chance of coming into being during Trump’s presidency, but it’s a good starting point for discussions in 2029 about ethics reform.
In addition to the moral squalor it feeds, corruption is antithetical to free markets, which require uniform rules, reliably enforced. Healthy markets depend on a level playing field where the interplay of supply and demand efficiently allocates capital. Even when outright corruption isn’t involved, the cronyism of a system rigged in favor of elites and insiders undermines that admirable dynamic.
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