Introducing the Kleptocracy in America Report
THE KLEPTOCRACY IN AMERICA REPORT
Issue #1
January 16, 2025
INTRODUCING THE KLEPTOCRACY IN AMERICA REPORT
Welcome to the debut issue of our new US-focused newsletter, the Kleptocracy in America Report! You may be receiving this because you subscribe to DKP’s Dekleptocracy Report, our bi-monthly newsletter offering analysis on the economic fight against Russia and other authoritarian kleptocracies. But we’re starting a newsletter focused exclusively on the US, because, unfortunately, the most important front in the fight against global authoritarian kleptocracy is about to be right here at home.
In our first feature, we lay out the case for a four-alarm fire as the next incarnation of the Trump administration takes office. The first Trump term is considered by many to have been the most corrupt presidency in modern history — and the sequel promises to be even worse. But while corruption in America may be about to reach new heights, the roots of the problem, reflected in plummeting federal law enforcement of official corruption, emerged long before Trump took office. Corruption crosses party lines and extends from DC to the local level, where it is intimately connected to the slow death of the local news industry. But there is a silver lining: taking action against local corruption is one of the most impactful things citizens can do to protect democracy in this uncertain time.
FEATURE
YES, VIRGINIA, THIS MAY SOON BE A KLEPTOCRACY
When most Americans hear the word “kleptocracy”, they probably don’t think of their own country. And America certainly isn’t a kleptocracy – yet. However, as the effectiveness of perennial political promises to “drain the swamp” shows, the perception that the American political class is fundamentally corrupt, in the broad sense, is widespread, and – as anti-corruption expert Sarah Chayes shows in her 2020 book On Corruption in America – not entirely unfounded. Washington, by her account, really is run by a system of self-dealing elites straddling the public and private sectors, created by decades of deregulation and Supreme Court decisions that have legalized practices widely perceived as corrupt in spirit, if not in law. Beyond this, there are plenty of cases each year of straight-up corruption and bribery at all levels of government in America, and federal prosecution of corruption and bribery has been declining for decades (although the decline accelerated in 2016). Nonetheless, the US is still more or less a society governed according to the rule of law. But this could be about to change.
The previous Trump administration was possibly the most corrupt in postwar American history, with over 3,700 conflicts of interest documented by the DC corruption watchdog CREW. But the incoming Trump Administration could do more than just engage in corruption – it could institutionalize it. The Republican Party has long since become a Trump family business, and the GOP establishment figures who served as a check on Trump’s worst impulses in his previous term – the so-called “adults in the room” – are gone. The American political landscape will likely become thoroughly transactional, characterized by what some experts have described as “court politics” centered on the ruler. With the combination of corporate (and Democratic) capitulation, support from an emergent American oligarchy (whose members are prone to wax philosophical about the end of the liberal international order), Republican control of Congress, and judicial capture – in particular, a self-interested Supreme Court that has systematically weakened anti-corruption statutes – has set the stage for an unrestrained presidency. Taken together, this could pitch the US from systematic self-dealing to outright authoritarian kleptocracy.
Corruption and authoritarianism tend to go hand in hand not only because of simple venality, but because systematic lawbreaking throughout a system allows a regime to use arbitrary prosecution to enforce its rule. Unfortunately, if his threats to prosecute political rivals and demands for loyalty tests are anything to go by, Trump will seek to do this. The prospect of systematic, official impunity and the emergence of governance through personalized networks where loyalty to the leader (and a little contribution on the side) is the only option for people in public life or those seeking to do business with them, instead of institutions, should scare Americans of all political stripes.
The emergence of this system – rather than any specific set of authoritarian policies– is the greatest threat the incoming Trump administration poses to American democracy and American society. The bottom line is that not only can it happen here, we are also watching it in real time. But while Trump is at the center of this transformation, focusing on the dealings of the highest levels of American power won’t be enough. Concerned citizens need to use a wider aperture, observing the broader American system from the smallest local government to state capitals to Washington DC for telltale signs that corruption is spreading – and moving from being a bug to a feature.
Countering corruption from Moscow to Mar-a-Lago
As Donald Trump takes office, there is no doubt going to be plenty of focus on corruption at the highest levels. We are using our experience and expertise on the kleptocracy par excellence – Russia – and leveraging our research networks to take a different approach. Grand corruption in Washington may get the most press, but it’s not the sort of corruption that most affects Americans in their day-to-day life. Local corruption, abuse of power by city and state officials, regardless of party affiliation, often has the most impact on our communities. It can determine who builds what and where, which businesses and neighborhoods prosper and which miss out, who goes to high office and who goes to jail. And it's ultimately connected to networks of power going up to the national level.
Of course, a bribery case in a DC local council isn’t usually kitchen-table talk in Peoria. As we all know, US local media institutions have declined precipitously, reducing coverage of local issues overall, and when instances of minor abuse of office make the news, they’re treated as isolated examples of individual venality. Our theory here, though, is that it’s anything but isolated, for the simple reason that corruption is ultimately a political act. Riffing on Clausewitz, corruption, like war, is the extension of political intercourse with the admixture of other means, and everything happening in American public life today, from the Oval Office to local office, is part of a nationwide conflict between the agents of a narrow, personalist, rent-seeking oligarchy and the supporters of institutionalist democracy. In this context, local corruption has national implications, as demonstrated by the Supreme Court’s ruling on a $10,000 bribery case in a small city in Indiana earlier this year, which amounts to a green light for official abuse of office – and thus the spread of kleptocracy. To riff again, this time on Tip O'Neill: all corruption is local. We want to reframe the problem with this lens, drawing back to show the big picture – how patterns of corruption from the local level on up fit into our national struggles as the Republic heads into its most dangerous era in decades. There’s another important reason for focusing locally: it’s where rule of law and democracy have the best chance of scoring victories, and ordinary citizens are well positioned to fight back against the spread of kleptocracy by acting as watchdogs against abuse of office in their communities in the coming years. .
The Kleptocracy in America Report will delve into these topics, establishing the first regular publication focused on tracking corruption and related issues nationwide, with an emphasis on the local level. We’ll start small, drawing on open-source evidence to paint a picture of the patterns and prevalence of corruption, and increasingly delve into the details, always asking the questions: How do specific cases relate to the big picture, and how does this corruption impact local communities? Our hope is that this not only informs our readership, but becomes a trigger for activists, journalists, law-abiding authorities, and concerned citizens to coordinate and communicate, to fight back, and if we’re lucky, preserve our Democracy.
We hope you’ll join us on this journey.
WHAT WE'RE FOLLOWING
MUST READS
At DKP we support and collaborate with journalists at all levels, so we expect not only to share the best reporting on corruption but look at the media itself. In this case, it may be instructive to read about the resignation of editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who quit the Washington Post for its failure to publish a cartoon showing the paper’s owner Jeff Bezos and other media tycoons literally groveling at Trump’s feet in that very paper. But we recommend her substack about the case, which includes a brilliant proof of the cartoon and her reasons for quitting on principle a paper that, last time around, claimed “Democracy Dies in Darkness”.
Another substack we’ve been reading is a chilling analysis of the machinations last month over the continuing resolution that came within hours of shutting down the federal government. Elon Musk played a well understood role in pushing the GOP to torpedo its own measure. But, in a careful analysis, Heather Cox Richardson points out that his 12th hour push (technically he had 13 hours left) allowed him to kill a bipartisan measure aimed at preventing US companies from making certain outward, high-tech investments in China. Go to her substack for more.
DC THROUGHLINE
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) calls it the “Repealing Big Brothers Overreach Act” but you can also call it the latest systematic attempt to kill the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), designed, among other things, to get every company in America to disclose its beneficial ownership to Uncle Sam. While we would argue that the CTA should have required disclosure to the public, not just the Department of Treasury, the move to kill CTA is still a step backwards for the US. See here for more.
NATIONAL ROUNDUP
California
Feds detail sprawling probe of bribery by public officials overseeing cannabis industry in Southern California: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-12-12/california-senator-susan-rubio-corruption-investigation-cannabis-bribery-scheme
Florida
FBI probes of systemic municipal corruption in Jackson followed script of investigation in capital, Tallahassee: https://eu.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2024/10/30/how-an-fbi-probe-in-tallahassee-is-similar-to-jackson-ms-bribery-scandal/75840933007/
Georgia
A year on and an election later, Georgia Senate Republicans continue to probe Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis: https://atlanta.capitalbnews.org/fani-willis-investigation-georgia-general-assembly/
Kansas
The Kansas Department of Commerce hired a third-party investigator to review all its grants distributed from the American Rescue Plan Act after a former employee who alleged a corrupt process for the Building a Stronger Economy grant turned up dead: https://eu.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/state/2024/08/31/kansas-department-of-commerce-reviewing-grants-gov-vows-to-bring-box-back/75011466007/
Illinois
Federal trial of former Illinois speaker on racketeering and bribery charges paints vivid picture of machine politics even as prosecutors struggle with Supreme Court’s redefinition of public corruption: https://chicago.suntimes.com/madigan-trial-news
New Hampshire
The defense in the case of Ports Director Geno Marconi and his wife, Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, has complained that the prosecution has failed to come through on discovery as one of the Granite state’s biggest recent criminal case against officials (and interference and obstruction) appears to be dragging on: https://nhjournal.com/marconis-lawyers-ask-wheres-the-discovery-beef/
New Jersey
Former political allies, as well as friends and family, urged leniency for former NJ Senator Bob Menendez (D) – convicted in one of the largest single corruption cases in term of funds paid to a single politician in the US as a federal judge prepares to sentence him on convictions of bribery and acting as a foreign agent, among other charges: https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/01/03/allies-of-convicted-ex-sen-bob-menendez-urge-judge-to-be-lenient-in-sentencing/
South Dakota
The South Dakota Scout published a review of a year “bookended” by public corruption, state employee scandals, nepotism and abuse of power, while also shining the spotlight on the value of investigative journalism: https://kbhbradio.com/spotlighting-government-scandal-a-year-of-public-coruption-in-south-dakota/