Trump’s Executive Order Against “Weaponizing” the Federal Government Looks Like a “Get Out of Jail Free” Card for Corporate Insiders
By Rick Claypool
President Trump’s executive order “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government” is not just about getting back at the Biden administration – it’s also threatens to ring in a new era of corporate lawlessness.
Commentary on the “weaponization” executive order has understandably emphasized that its likely targets include prosecutors and intelligence community members under Biden who Trump perceives as political enemies. After all, the order accuses the “prior administration and allies throughout the country” of “an unprecedented, third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process” and complains that the Justice Department “ruthlessly prosecuted more than 1,500 individuals associated with January 6.”
But the formal replacement of Biden officials with Trump officials and the pardoning and clemency for January 6 defendants is just the beginning.
Section three of the executive order directs Trump’s Attorney General to “review the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States, including, but not limited to, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission” under the Biden administration.
Trump has no apparent personal conflicts or complaints with the SEC or FTC – and their inclusion alongside the DOJ, the American Prospect’s Ryan Cooper observed, means the president appears to be targeting agencies carrying out wholly merited and long overdue enforcement efforts on behalf of corporate interests that have aligned themselves with the White House.
Public Citizen’s Corporate Enforcement Tracker shows that the Trump administration is inheriting 300 federal investigations and cases against more than 250 corporations accused of misconduct – many of which are now going out of their way to ingratiate themselves with the president.
The tracker includes 77 DOJ cases, 44 SEC cases, and 38 FTC cases – and the subjects of these investigations include many of the corporate titans who attended Trump’s inauguration, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Tiktok, and no less than four businesses helmed by Elon Musk: Neuralink, SpaceX, Tesla, and X (formerly Twitter). At least 26 donated (or their CEOs donated) to Trump’s inaugural festivities, and four are former lobbying clients of Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General nominee (Amazon, Pfizer, Republic Services, and Uber).
It has become increasingly common for corporate interests facing federal investigations for misconduct – and their allies – to cast law enforcement protecting the public from corporate lawbreaking as unfair government “weaponization” against them.
- Elon Musk, facing an enforcement alleging misconduct related to the purchase of Twitter, complained, “the SEC is just another weaponized institution doing political dirty work.”
- Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of the cryptocurrency corporation Ripple said the SEC in a post online “has essentially weaponized the lack of regulatory clarity through enforcement actions.”
- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC that Biden enforcement agencies “weaponize the lack of clarity in the rules.”
- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce accused OSHA of trying to “politicize and weaponize the agency’s inspections.”
- House Republicans compiled two reports criticizing the FTC’s legal oversight of Twitter titled “The Weaponization of the Federal Trade Commission” (Part I and Part II).
- Rep. Patrick McHenry characterized the CFPB issuing a new rule limiting credit card late fees as the Biden administration continuing to “weaponize financial regulators.”
- Trump himself told crypto enthusiasts on the campaign trail, “Sadly, we see the attacks on crypto. It’s a part of a much larger pattern that’s being carried out by the same left-wing fascists to weaponize government against any threat to their power. They’ve done it to me.”
What happens if and when the Attorney General’s review identifies instances of “weaponization” against corporate lawbreakers? Frankly, it’s a little murky – the executive order instructs the Attorney General to prepare a report for “the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and the Counsel to the President, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken to fulfill the purposes and policies of this order.”
We do know that the last time Trump took office, corporate enforcement plummeted across agencies where Trump-appointees took over. Federal investigations into corporate misconduct were dropped, and corporate penalties in multiple instances were reduced.
Given the mass pardoning and clemency of every January 6 defendant – including even those convicted of extraordinarily violent crimes against police officers protecting the Capitol – it’s not hard to imagine the Trump administration dropping cases against entire categories of corporate lawbreakers, such as crypto corporations. Or fossil fuel corporations. Or inauguration donors.
One thing must be made clear: punishing corporations for violating the law isn’t “weaponization” – it’s how federal enforcement agencies protect the public from rip-offs, pollution, discrimination, and the full range of dangers that can arise from businesses unfairly taking advantage of Americans.
But the dropping of corporate cases en masse would be a greenlight for corporate impunity – and a return to the kind of frenzy of reckless greed that fueled corporate catastrophes like Wall Street’s 2008 financial crisis, the Oxycontin-fueled opioid crisis, and BP’s oil spill disaster.
There’s absolutely nothing great about that.