A Corruption Crisis of Epic Proportions
From the Desk of Trevor Potter, Founder and President of Campaign Legal Center, our strategic litigation partner
BY TREVOR POTTER
When the story of Donald Trump’s second presidential term is told in full, a rampant culture of corruption fostered by the president and his administration will surely be one of the central themes. In this moment, the task of capturing the scale and impact of the administration’s failure to uphold laws and standards governing ethical conduct falls to civil society.
An exhaustive effort to track, document and expose (often through legal action) blatant examples of self-dealing and pay-to-play corruption has led the attorneys and researchers here at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) to conclude that our government is experiencing its worst ethics crisis since the days of Watergate.
We do this work with the full knowledge that officials in this administration are unlikely to hold wrongdoers accountable, especially those within the president’s inner circle. However, we believe building a record of corruption and exposing betrayals of public trust is vital to address the dramatic democratic backsliding occurring during the second Trump term. While stories like the Qatari government gifting a luxury jet to the president manage to break through a crowded news cycle, there are many others that go virtually unnoticed by the vast majority of Americans.
Rising corruption is one of the warning signs of a failing democracy, and ours is certainly under threat. Shining a light on corrupt acts and demanding accountability is key to confronting this problem by ensuring that the public, including elected officials, understands what is happening within the government. This work is also crucial for building support to advance systemic reforms in the future.
Corruption on a colossal scale
Campaign Legal Center’s Trump Corrupt Transactions Tracker, which we launched last November and are updating regularly, currently features more than three dozen egregious instances of the Trump administration abusing executive branch power by doling out favorable treatment to those who financially support the president’s personal or political interests.
One item from the tracker that stands out as a multi-dimensional example of corruption is the case of a Venezuelan-Italian billionaire. Facing criminal bribery charges, Julio Herrera Velutini received an incredibly lenient plea deal last year from federal prosecutors and was pardoned by President Trump in January 2026 — after his daughter reportedly contributed $3.5 million to MAGA Inc., a Trump-supporting super PAC.
Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Velutini of illegally funneling his own money to the Trump-supporting super PAC through his daughter. This classic “straw donor” scheme concealed his identity as the true contributor and allowed foreign money to influence the election — which federal law expressly prohibits. It’s one of dozens of ethics and campaign finance complaints filed by Campaign Legal Center since Trump returned to office.
Abuse of the presidential pardon power is one of six corruption categories covered by the CLC tracker. The others involve cabinet or senior executive branch appointments, ambassadorships, dropped cases and investigations, perks and promises for corporations and favors for foreign governments.
The most recent updates and additions include:
Timothy J. Leiweke, whose company Oak View Group donated $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. Leiweke was indicted last July for conspiring to rig the bidding process for a multi-use arena at a public university in Texas. He received a pardon five months later in December, after his attorney played a round of golf with President Trump.
In January, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dismissed its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange platform Gemini Trust. Gemini’s founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who are reportedly “among the president’s closest allies in the crypto industry,” contributed more than $2.5 million in support of his 2024 campaign. They more recently donated funds for the construction of the White House ballroom and backed a crypto firm co-founded by Eric Trump, the president’s second son.
Preparing for a new day
What we are witnessing is an unconscionable rejection of post-Watergate anti-corruption reforms. Following that scandal, members of Congress realized they needed to pass new laws and create new oversight structures within the government to prevent corruption in the future and hold government officials accountable for their actions.
Campaign Legal Center is working to formulate the next generation of anti-corruption laws with the same core purpose of the Watergate reforms — restoring public trust in government institutions. By exposing weaknesses in existing laws and practices, the Trump administration is showing us exactly where our anti-corruption guardrails are most in need of repair or replacement:
Ethics enforcement in the executive branch requires a major overhaul. Campaign Legal Center is calling on a future Congress to create an independent executive branch ethics body to centralize enforcement authorities currently distributed among several different executive branch offices and agencies.
We need permanent rules to stop the revolving door in Washington that moves lobbyists into top government posts overseeing their former clients. Today, such rules are determined by each incoming administration, and even those are often ignored.
On the issue of pardons, future presidents should commit to awarding clemency based on recommendations from career staff in the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Congress should enact legislation requiring detailed explanations for every pardon; mandating disclosure of gifts or political contributions received from pardon recipients; and tightening the disclosure rules around private lobbying for clemency.
To reduce the corrupting influence of dark money in our elections, Congress should enact the DISCLOSE Act, which would require the kind of transparency around election spending that voters deserve. When billionaires and major corporations are allowed to influence elections in secret, it is nearly impossible to “follow the money” and expose a corrupt pay-to-play bargain. The Federal Election Commission, tasked with enforcing campaign finance laws — in no small part for the purpose of preventing corruption — is also in need of structural repairs.
Our nation’s history includes notable examples of government reformers rising up to meet the moment following periods of scandal and corruption. Aside from the post-Watergate period, one can think about the progressive era that followed the Gilded Age and the successful push for campaign finance reform in the early 2000’s, an effort that I was fortunate to be a part of. The lesson, in my view, is that reformers need to be ready when opportunities arise. It’s a lesson that we at Campaign Legal Center are taking very seriously as the current corruption crisis unfolds.
I support all ethical efforts to expose and prosecute the criminal administration that is destroying our democracy. For truth and justice to prevail, every American must wake up, speak up and stand up.
Citizens United opened the door to allowing corporations to contribute to campaigns while enjoying the disclosure protections similar to those afforded to private citizens. How do we undo that?