Trump’s Carnival of Corruption Threatens Our Democracy
Donald Trump’s second term has been marked by personal graft, rampant abuse of power, and subversion of the rule of law and the Constitution.
Join Zeteo’s John Harwood in a live conversation with Judd Legum of Popular Information on Thursday at 2pm ET! They’ll discuss how independent journalists can hold Trump accountable in ways Big Media won’t.
The United States had suffered all kinds of federal government corruption long before Donald Trump showed up in the White House.
Watergate exposed Richard Nixon’s abuse of the presidency for the purpose of keeping power. Iran-Contra showed how Ronald Reagan’s administration defied Congress to pursue a policy goal that lawmakers had outlawed. Abscam caught members of Congress taking cash bribes; in the Teapot Dome scandal, a Cabinet member did the same.
The Pentagon Papers revealed lies by multiple administrations to justify US involvement in Vietnam. In the My Lai massacre, that war produced ugly war crimes. And so on, since the nation’s founding 250 years ago.
What distinguishes Trump’s second presidency is the breadth and depth of its crookedness – the enormous personal graft, of course, but also rampant abuse of power, subversion of the rule of law, violation of the Constitution, top-to-bottom dishonesty, and acts of violence, including murder. Over the last 11 months of 2025, he has conducted an orgy of corruption and criminality that threatens the American experiment itself.