WASHINGTON—Republican President Donald Trump, who as an ex-builder always brags about his deal-making prowess, has legalized bribery both abroad and at home—because it helps in deal-making.
In one big action that raised eyebrows, Trump told his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a statute that prohibits U.S. businesses from bribing foreign officials to win their nations’ business, for six months, and to “review “it.
That means, for right now, it’s open season for the corrupt corporate class to line their pockets by bribing foreign potentates, although a right-wing law firm, Morgan Lewis, is warning them not to jump in immediately. It says Trump’s just suspending the FCPA, not killing it.
The law, approved in 1977 among other post-Watergate political reforms, “has been systematically, and to a steadily increasing degree, stretched beyond proper bounds and abused in a manner that harms the interests of the United States,” Trump declared in an executive order.
“It’s going to mean a lot more business for America,” Trump said while signing the order on February 10 in the Oval Office. In the past, he’s called it “horrible” and claims “the world is laughing at us” for enforcing it.
But Trump didn’t stop with letting corporate capitalists bribe officials abroad in nations where baksheesh is common. He’s letting a top domestic briber, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, go too. That effort is being held up, however, because of a rash of resignations from prosecutors who would rather quit than drop charges against the mayor.
The executive order legalizing bribery is the bigger deal, however, and it angered a top international good-government group.
Trump’s executive order legalizing bribery “diminishes, and could pave the way for completely eliminating, the crown jewel in the U.S.’s fight against global corruption,” Gary Kalman, executive director of Transparency International U.S., told Reuters in a statement.
Trump’s order stops in its tracks 26 active investigations by the Justice Department and 31 more by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Past convictions of U.S. firms under the anti-bribery law included Goldman Sachs and Halliburton. Foreign firms that do business in the U.S. also paid multi-million-dollar fines for falsifying business records to hide the bribes they paid abroad.
Goldman Sachs ($1.6 billion to the U.S. and $1.3 billion more to Great Britain and Singapore) led the all-time FCPA bribery list, a pro-whistleblower law firm reported. It paid over a billion dollars in bribes to officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Two company officials served time.
Halliburton, which had employed former GOP Vice President Dick Cheney before he quit and before it got caught, paid $579 million in fines in 2008 for bribing Nigerian officials for a decade “to obtain large construction contracts,” a pro-whistleblower law firm reported. It pled guilty to altering business records and funneling money through shell companies. Halliburton’s FCPA fine was #7 on the law firm’s “top eight” list.
“Overexpansive and unpredictable FCPA enforcement against American citizens and businesses—by our own government—for routine business practices in other nations wastes limited prosecutorial resources,” Trump complained in the executive order.
Prosecutors “could be dedicated to preserving American freedoms, but” the anti-bribery law “actively harms American economic competitiveness and, therefore, national security.”
“Companies both domestic and foreign should still view compliance with anti-corruption laws in the U.S. and abroad as critical,” the law firm Morgan Lewis warned clients in reply.
“De-prioritization and potential reshaping of FCPA enforcement does not equate to immunity and does not eliminate the risk of future enforcement. Statutes of limitation for FCPA violations—five years for the anti-bribery provisions and six years for accounting provisions—extend beyond the tenure of a single administration.”
In one of the domestic bribery cases, covering New York City Mayor Adams, there’s a quid pro quo. The Mayor, a Republican-turned-Democrat in the nation’s largest city, is moving away from the official stand of New York as a “sanctuary city” for migrants, thus letting Trump’s ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents hunt down alleged migrants. In other words, anyone with a brown skin.
Trump’s acting AG before Bondi took over ordered federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop their planned case against Adams. The trial had been set for April.
Charges of bribery
Prosecutors charged there were bribes to the mayor and top officials by the autocratic Turkish government in return for looking the other way on zoning violations at a new skyscraper for its consulate in Manhattan. Adams faced charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and bribery, news reports said.
The mayor has been rocked by forced firings of dishonest officials, including his hand-picked Police Commissioner, and a loud resignation by his then-Corporation Counsel, who spoke out against the bribery scheme and refused to go along.
In return for dropping the prosecution, news reports add Adams, a former cop, may revert to the GOP, as he faces a difficult Democratic mayoral primary this year. The memo ordering the charges be dropped said the case “interferes with Adams’ re-election campaign.” Adams attended Trump’s inauguration.
Now, of course, the resignations of prosecutors refusing to carry out Trump’s dirty deals are throwing a wrench into the works.
That “interference” in elections reason echoes the excuse Trump and his lawyers used to delay and ultimately avoid prosecution in D.C. and Georgia for inciting the 2001 U.S. Capitol invasion, insurrection, and attempted coup d’etat. One of Trump’s first executive orders pardoned all 1,500 indicted and convicted invaders.
And on February 12, Trump Attorney General Bondi announced Trump’s Justice Department would sue New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia “Tish” James, and the city to end New York’s non-cooperation with the ICE raids. Even before Bondi took over, Trump’s DOJ sued Chicago for that.
“This is a new DOJ, and we are taking steps to protect Americans…New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens. It stops today,” Bondi said. “
Unmentioned: New York AG James won a lawsuit against Trump over tax evasion in Westchester County. He wound up paying almost $200 million in fines, far below what she originally sought.
Not suspended by Trump’s order: Other federal anti-bribery laws which caught former Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and two co-conspirators in bribing Egyptian officials.
On January 29, Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Danielle Sassoon announced. She termed his actions “an egregious abuse of power.”
Menendez “used his position to help his co-conspirators and a foreign government, in exchange for bribes like cash, gold, and a luxury car. The sentences send a clear message that attempts at any level of government to corrupt the nation’s foreign policy and the rule of law will be met with just punishment.”
CONTRIBUTOR
