The Sequel: How Trump Made the World Safe for the Corrupt Elite

Two weeks into his second term, then Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a series of internal directives and reset the Department of Justice's priorities. Under a president who became the first person convicted of white collar crimes ever elected to the White House, the administration announced it would begin dismantling the pillars of America's fight against bribery and self enrichment. Some of those laws had been on the books since before Trump was born.

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Bondi's first target was the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. The law, enacted in the late 1930s, was straightforward. It required Americans to disclose when they were lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, but it did not prohibit the practice. Thanks to the First Amendment, anyone was free to advocate for whoever they wanted, polish anyone's reputation, or open doors in Washington for any client they chose.

For decades, FARA lived in the shadows, rarely enforced and largely ignored. That allowed the foreign lobbying industry, made up of lobbying firms, PR agencies, consulting firms, law firms, and think tanks, to grow into a multibillion dollar business. For foreign dictatorships, it became one of the most effective tools for shaping American policy to fit their interests. After Trump's first election, however, the law suddenly carried real weight. Prosecutors went after one foreign lobbyist after another, from Trump's campaign chairman to his national security adviser and many more. Guilty pleas followed, convictions followed, and for the first time much of the industry was dragged into the light.

This was not a partisan campaign. In 2024, then Senator Bob Menendez was also convicted because he had secretly acted as an agent of Egypt's military dictatorship. Prosecutors said he conspired to work on Cairo's behalf, influenced fellow members of Congress, and drafted material for his foreign patrons in exchange for gold bars that he hid inside his home. By the early 2020s, FARA had finally become a serious enforcement tool. Then Bondi arrived and declared that era over. The law remained in place, but Bondi, who herself had once lobbied on behalf of the theocratic dictatorship of Qatar, announced that FARA would from then on be used only in cases resembling traditional espionage. Bondi herself lasted little more than a year. In April 2026, Trump fired her, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche took over as acting attorney general.

What exactly that meant remained unclear. The United States already has separate espionage laws, and FARA was never about spying in the first place. Its purpose was to expose the hidden lobbying networks operating around Washington by showing how foreign governments and oligarchs sought to bend American policy to serve their interests, through lifting sanctions, shutting down investigations, and in some cases even encouraging military action. FARA had once been regarded around the world as a model law. Now it was effectively dead, and with it disappeared a significant measure of public transparency.

In the very same memorandum, Bondi also ordered the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force to be dismantled. Created in 2017, ironically during Trump's first term, the unit quickly became the government's leading tool for investigating foreign influence operations inside the United States. It investigated campaigns linked to Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela, among others. As foreign interference intensified, the task force became increasingly important. With its elimination, the FBI lost its only specialized unit devoted exclusively to combating foreign influence.

Excerpt from the memorandum "General Policy Regarding Charging, Plea Negotiations, and Sentencing," dated February 5, 2025. On page 4, the U.S. Department of Justice orders the dissolution of the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force. The memorandum also states that criminal prosecutions under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) will generally be limited to cases resembling traditional espionage by foreign governments. The FARA Unit will instead focus primarily on civil enforcement, regulatory initiatives, and public guidance.

Next, the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative was eliminated. Established in 2010, the unit was tasked with tracing, freezing, seizing, and returning assets tied to criminal financial networks to their countries of origin. A significant share of that dirty money had flowed into the United States. The millions it recovered were small compared to the billions stolen worldwide, yet it stood as a visible sign that Washington was willing to go after these networks. From Nigeria to Uzbekistan, and in Malaysia as well, the initiative helped return looted assets and partially restore America's damaged credibility in the fight against dirty money. Then it disappeared with the stroke of a pen.

Bondi's purge continued. She also dismantled KleptoCapture, the task force created after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 based on the recognition that oligarchs are an extension of corrupt governments. Yachts, mansions, private jets, expensive artwork, and luxury cars could be seized if they had been purchased with dirty money and were linked to the Kremlin's inner circle. In early 2025, the Trump administration put an end to that effort as well.

Excerpt from the memorandum "Total Elimination of Cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations," dated February 5, 2025. On page 4, the U.S. Department of Justice orders the dissolution of Task Force KleptoCapture, the Kleptocracy Team, and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. Resources previously devoted to identifying and seizing assets believed to have been acquired through corruption are instead redirected to the fight against cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

These names and acronyms may seem like an impenetrable maze. From a broader perspective, however, the picture becomes unmistakably clear. Within a single day, only weeks after taking office, the United States dismantled or severely weakened its most effective tools for combating the self enrichment of corrupt power networks. Years of progress were rolled back, decades of legal development were cast aside. The American economy opened itself as never before to dirty money and foreign influence, to corrupt regimes across the world. Oligarchs everywhere watched their American counterparts gain access to the White House and realized they, too, had been invited to join the feast, in an era when white collar crime was being made great again.

That was only the beginning. Once the dust settled, Trump himself picked up the pen, quite literally. While pressuring media organizations and intimidating universities, shaping what would become the most authoritarian administration since the days of Richard Nixon, he turned his attention to the last remaining pillars of America's anti corruption framework. Where he had once merely mocked them, he now set out to tear them apart.

His first target was the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the FCPA, itself a direct consequence of the corruption scandals surrounding Nixon. Trump openly called this cornerstone of America's anti corruption system a terrible law. He argued that it prevented American companies from engaging in the kind of routine high level bribery practiced elsewhere and described it as a disaster for the United States. Through executive action, he effectively halted enforcement in the name of strengthening America's economic competitiveness and allowing U.S. companies to return to the normal business practices of other countries, a polite way of saying bribery. With that, foreign corruption became respectable again, and one of the most important post Watergate reforms was buried in plain sight.

Trump had another target in his sights as well. In 2021, the United States established its first registry for shell companies, the single most important step toward ending the country's role as the world's leading haven for anonymous shell corporations. Without those entities, oligarchs and dictators would have found it much harder to hide dirty money in American real estate, investment funds, corporate holdings, and other assets. The registry went online in 2024 as a confidential database accessible only to government authorities. For many, it marked a turning point, the possible end of America as one of the world's premier offshore financial centers.

He called the law a Biden rule and conveniently left out the fact that it had passed with bipartisan support and even over his own veto. He wrote that the new reporting requirements were an absolute disaster for small businesses and promised that what he called their economic burden would soon be gone. Trump himself was no stranger to anonymous shell companies. His real estate empire had relied on them for decades, concealing international financial networks long before he ever became president. Even so, the decision sent shockwaves through the legal and financial world. These kinds of structures were used by fentanyl traffickers, cartel leaders, Chinese money laundering networks, Iranian arms dealers, and many others, precisely the kinds of criminals Trump claimed he wanted to fight. Law enforcement agencies across the country had openly supported the reporting requirements.

Trump did not care. His Treasury Department announced that it would no longer impose penalties on American shell companies that failed to comply with the reporting rules. Formally, the law remained on the books. In practice, it was as if it had never existed. More than that, the White House announced it would destroy the data that had already been collected, wiping out the records that had, for the first time, shed light on anonymous shell companies operating inside the United States. Soon afterward, the administration also rolled back proposed anti money laundering rules covering private equity firms and hedge funds, allowing them to continue accepting dirty money with few meaningful restrictions.

There was something remarkable about the way it was done. Rather than formally repealing the laws, Trump found a loophole that allowed him to decide which laws his administration would enforce and which ones it would simply ignore. He reversed his constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress and declared that no one needed to worry about enforcing an entire series of statutes anymore. A law that is never enforced is nothing more than words on paper. It remains in the statute books like a corpse, while the man who swore to uphold it alone decides which laws still matter. In doing so, he created a new legal order by executive action and handed corrupt governments and oligarchs a public roadmap for white collar crime.

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He still was not finished. While dismantling the old laws, he also created new ways to bring dirty money into the United States. From the Oval Office, he personally promoted a Gold Card, a pathway to citizenship for anyone able to pay $5 million, whether a drug kingpin, an oligarch, or a human rights abuser anywhere in the world. They would be wealthy, they would pay taxes, they would spend money, they would create jobs, he promised. It would be tremendously successful. Holding up the card for reporters to see, it displayed his face, his signature, and the words Trump Card. Programs like this were not new. For years, corrupt elites had purchased passports from offshore jurisdictions such as Dominica, Malta, and Cyprus, perfect escape routes for anyone seeking to avoid investigation or arrest. The United States had once operated a similar program, but in 2022 Congress closed major money laundering loopholes. Trump ignored those reforms and made no secret of the people he hoped to attract. Asked whether Russian oligarchs would also qualify for such a card, he replied, "Yeah, possible. Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs. They're very nice people." A few months later, the program was launched. The price had dropped. Now $1 million was enough to buy a new life in America. U.S. residency, and eventually citizenship, was available to anyone with enough money. The world's corrupt elite could hardly have asked for more.