Attacking Corruption in Washington DC
The current administration has shown just how far you can give and take favors for personal wealth. Federal pardons can be bought. Foreign governments can give gifts to the President. Congress can make stock trades with insider knowledge. And the Supreme Court says its only bribery if money is literally handed off immediately after doing a favor. We can do better than this.
Solutions
Stopping Insider Trading in Congress
Members of Congress have access to privileged information in their day-to-day workings. This information can be incredibly valuable in how it could affect financial institutions like the stock market. This can create a conflict of interest between a Congress persons duty to their constituents and their personal and family wealth.
One of the best examples of this was in 2020. On January 24, 2020, the Senate Committees on Health and Foreign Relations held a closed door meeting to get information on the COVID-19 pandemic [1]. Immediately after this meeting, several senators began making stock trades allegedly based on this information [2].
All of this was done despite the STOCK Act having been signed into law in 2012 [3]. The STOCK Act is supposed to prevent insider trading in Congress, but the law's ability to prevent insider trading has been up for debate, with an article reporting that reporting that 48 members of Congress and 182 top Capitol Hill staffers have violated the STOCK Act in 2021. [4]
In 2023, Rep. Abigail Spanberger introduced the TRUST in Congress Act. [1] This bill would goes much further than the STOCK Act by forcing all members of Congress to place their investments into a blind trust with the goal of removing in conflicts of interest.
Foreign Governments Providing Gifts
The UAE invested $500 million into Trumps Crypto currency just prior to the inauguration of Donald Trump as President. A few months later, the US approved the sale of previous restricted AI hardware to the UAE. These chips were being withheld for national security concerns. [1] Now, with the Iran war going on, the US appears poised to provide a bailout to the UAE, a nation with the highest per-capita in the world, due to the US-Iran war. [2]
In another instance of attempted influence, the government of Qatar provided the Trump administration with a new Boeing jet to act as Air Force 1, an estimated $400 million gift. [3]
Expanding Definition of Bribery
In Synder v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that so long as there is no agreement prior to a legislative act, there can be no allegation of bribery. [1]