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corporate crime
Letting Fraudsters Run Wild, Trump Justice Department Abandons Corporate Crime Enforcement
"The Trump DOJ’s grotesque retreat from corporate crime enforcement leaves Americans increasingly vulnerable to tainted food, workplace exploitation, environmental destruction, widespread ripoffs, and all-around illegal corporate predation."
Jul 20, 2026
US President Donald Trump's Justice Department is systematically taking a softer approach to corporate crime, letting companies and executives that have admitted to wrongdoing off the hook with no charges.
The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that "so far this year, 12 companies have pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges. At least six companies have reached deferred prosecution agreements, including refiner Phillips 66 and medical-waste specialist Stericycle, acquired by Waste Management in 2024." The Journal added that while Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche and other officials have signaled that the Justice Department is "focusing on prosecuting employees rather than companies, it has also granted leniency or dropped charges against people it accused of wrongdoing."
"The Trump DOJ’s grotesque retreat from corporate crime enforcement leaves Americans increasingly vulnerable to tainted food, workplace exploitation, environmental destruction, widespread ripoffs, and all-around illegal corporate predation," said Rick Claypool, a researcher at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen who has been tracking the fall of corporate enforcement during Trump's second White House term—which has been rife with corruption and profiteering at the very top.
Claypool called the Trump Justice Department's lenient approach to corporate criminals "an absolute outrage" and that the trend is "going from bad to worse."
The Journal lays out several examples of the Justice Department abandoning enforcement efforts against prominent companies. "In matters involving Alibaba, EagleBank, and Abbott Laboratories, the department declined to charge companies even when prosecutors thought executives or managers were involved in the wrongdoing," the newspaper reported. "In those cases, the department didn’t charge any individuals."
"The Justice Department this year dropped its long-running prosecution of Turkish state-owned lender Halkbank for allegedly evading US sanctions on Iran," the Journal added. "And last year, the Trump administration dropped charges against Boeing. The aerospace giant had been set to plead guilty to misleading air-safety regulators but instead paid a $243 million fine and received a nonprosecution agreement. That is the same form of leniency that prosecutors granted to Alibaba and EagleBank, which requires them to admit wrongdoing but spares them from being charged."
Trump's DOJ has also shown lenience toward corporate executives. "The department in January gave a deferred prosecution agreement to the chief executive of a technology contractor who had been charged with defrauding the Securities and Exchange Commission," the Journal reported.
Bloomberg reported last week that the Justice Department plans to drop charges against "alleged mastermind of a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that prosecutors said defrauded investors of $722 million."
According to Public Citizen's tracker, the second Trump administration has canceled or frozen enforcement actions against more than 170 US corporations so far—including dozens of companies that donated to the president's inaugural fund.
“The Trump administration is canceling accountability for corporate predators that cheat consumers, exploit workers, and illegally abuse their power at home and abroad,” Claypool said earlier this year. “The ‘law enforcement’ claims the White House uses as pretext for authoritarian anti-immigrant crackdowns, city occupations, and imperial resource seizures abroad lose all credibility when cast against the lawlessness Trump allows for the pursuit of corporate profits."
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Trump Unleashes Feds on US Cities While Giving Free Rein to Corporate Criminals
The president's "law and order" claims, said the watchdog group Public Citizen, "lose all credibility when cast against the lawlessness Trump allows for the pursuit of corporate profits.”
Jan 15, 2026
US President Donald Trump is letting corporate criminals—including some of his donors—run wild with no accountability as he unleashes federal immigration agents across the country and threatens to deploy troops against protesters in Minneapolis in the name of "law and order."
A report published Thursday by the watchdog group Public Citizen shows that the Trump administration in the president's second term has so far canceled or halted 159 enforcement actions—from federal investigations to lawsuits—against 166 corporations accused of illegal conduct.
"As a result of Trump’s corporate enforcement retreat, at least eighteen corporations accused of lawbreaking avoided paying $3.1 billion in penalties for misconduct, including 12 that benefited from canceled enforcement and six that settled enforcement actions with penalties significantly reduced from those sought under" former President Joe Biden, the report observes.
Public Citizen estimates that a third of the corporations that have benefited from dropped or frozen enforcement efforts during Trump's second term have ties to his administration, including more than 30 that donated to the president's inaugural fund or ballroom project.
Those corporations include Amazon, Coinbase, Microsoft, Meta, and Pfizer. The pharmaceutical giant, which Pam Bondi represented before becoming US attorney general, has benefited from three canceled Justice Department enforcement actions since the start of Trump's term—more than any other company.
Rick Claypool, a Public Citizen research director and author of the new report, said the findings further undercut Trump's claim to care about the rule of law.
“The Trump administration is canceling accountability for corporate predators that cheat consumers, exploit workers, and illegally abuse their power at home and abroad,” said Claypool. “The ‘law enforcement’ claims the White House uses as pretext for authoritarian anti-immigrant crackdowns, city occupations, and imperial resource seizures abroad lose all credibility when cast against the lawlessness Trump allows for the pursuit of corporate profits."
NEW @Public_Citizen report:
Trump agencies canceled or froze 159 enforcement actions vs 166 alleged corporate lawbreakers over the 1st year of his 2nd term.
1/3 of the corps have Trump admin ties such as ballroom donations.
They avoided paying $3.1 billion in penalties. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/szM0umFzmD
— Rick Claypool (@RickClaypool) January 15, 2026
Public Citizen's analysis came hours after Trump, in an early morning social media post, threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to crush protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis, where federal agents have shot at least two people over the past week—one fatally—and brutalized many others.
Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen's co-president, said Thursday that "invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces against the American people is the exact opposite of what Minneapolis—and the country—needs right now."
“Trump should abandon this idea immediately and stop threatening to use the military against the American people," said Gilbert.
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‘Somebody’s Getting Rich’: Senator Suggests Trump Pardon Spree Is Yet Another Grift
"There's clearly a whole group of people around him that are making millions of dollars, and they're handing out favors to folks in the form of pardons," said Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy.
Dec 04, 2025
A Democratic US senator suggested during a television appearance late Wednesday that President Donald Trump's flurry of pardons for fraudsters and other white-collar criminals—from disgraced politicians to former corporate executives—is yet another cash grab concocted by the president's inner circle and lobbyists with ties to the White House.
“My sense is that somebody is getting rich, ultimately,“ Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told MSNBC's Chris Hayes shortly after Trump pardoned a former entertainment venue executive who was indicted by the president's own Justice Department over the summer.
"There is a cabal of administration officials and MAGA-friendly lobbyists that are in league together," Murphy continued. "They all huddle together at these elite restaurants and clubs in Washington, DC, and they likely hatch deals in which, if somebody pays a MAGA-affiliated lobbyist a couple hundred thousand dollars, then maybe you’ll be able to get a pardon.”
"There's clearly a whole group of people around him that are making millions of dollars, and they're handing out favors to folks in the form of pardons in order to make sure that they get their pockets lined," the senator added. "That's just, like, bread and butter corruption."
Watch:
The pardons Trump is handing out are a huge, growing scandal that not enough people are talking about. This is a money making operation - for for Trump, his family, his crypto pals, and the Trump-affiliated lobbyists and grifters who the pardon seekers pay. pic.twitter.com/FwLRyHDMqN
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 4, 2025
Since the start of his second term, Trump has used his pardon power to rescue well-connected executives and political allies from accountability, invariably claiming—without evidence—that the Biden administration manufactured the charges.
Many of those pardoned have been accused or convicted of white-collar crimes; "fraud" appears 57 times on the Justice Department page listing the names and offenses of those who have received clemency from the president this year.
Trump's willingness to unthinkingly pardon fraudsters has spawned a lucrative business for lobbyists and consultants linked to the administration. NBC News reported earlier this year that "two people directly familiar with proposals to lobbying firms said they knew of a client’s offer of $5 million to help get a case to Trump."
Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, reportedly had a lobbyist working to secure his pardon, which came in late October.
"I don't know who he is," Trump said when asked about the decision, adding that "a lot of people asked me" to pardon Zhao, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to "failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program."
Trump also made history with what's believed to be the nation's first-ever presidential pardon of a corporation: HDR Global Trading, the owner and operator of crypto exchange BitMEX. The company was sentenced earlier this year to a $100 million fine for violating anti-money laundering laws.
In a report published in September, Murphy detailed how corporate pardons "are happening throughout the federal government, in the form of rescinded orders, dropped cases, and the first-ever presidential pardon for a corporation." The watchdog group Public Citizen estimates that the Trump administration has halted or dropped more than 160 corporate enforcement cases since the start of the president's second term.
"Corporate pardons are just one of the ways that Trump is replacing democracy and rule of law with authoritarian power and rule by personal favor," Murphy wrote in his report. "If we are going to save our democracy, we need to act now."
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'Pro-White Collar Crime': Trump Pardons Former Executive Indicted by His Own DOJ
"This president serves the ultra-wealthy—not working people," said one watchdog group.
Dec 04, 2025
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted a full, unconditional pardon to former entertainment venue executive Tim Leiweke, who was indicted just months ago by Trump's own Justice Department for "orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena at a public university."
Leiweke, who expressed "profound gratitude" for the pardon, stepped down as CEO of Oak View Group in July, on the same day that the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division announced the indictment.
The longtime sports executive was accused of conspiring with the CEO of a competitor to rig bidding for the development of the $375 million, 15,000-seat Moody Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater said the scheme "deprived a public university and taxpayers of the benefits of competitive bidding."
Leiweke pleaded not guilty to the charge, which carried a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
Bloomberg observed that the pardon comes "just before Leiweke is scheduled to be deposed by lawyers for the Justice Department and Live Nation Entertainment Inc. on Thursday in the DOJ’s separate civil antitrust case against the company and its subsidiary Ticketmaster."
"Leiweke earlier unsuccessfully tried to avoid the deposition, citing liability from then pending criminal charges, according to court records," Bloomberg added.
Federal investigators have accused Oak View Group, Leiweke's former company, of quietly receiving kickbacks for promoting Ticketmaster services at Oak View Group venues.
The pardon was announced on the same day that Trump granted clemency to US Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who faced bribery and money laundering charges. Days earlier, the president commuted the prison sentence of a former private equity executive convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors.
"Private equity CEO David Gentile was sentenced to seven years for defrauding investors of 1.6 BILLION," the watchdog group Public Citizen wrote Wednesday. "But Trump commuted his sentence. This isn't the first time Trump has helped the corporate class evade accountability. This president serves the ultra-wealthy—not working people."
Antitrust advocate Matt Stoller accused Trump of advancing a "straightforward pro-white collar crime agenda" by using his pardon power to rescue fraudsters from prison time.
"Trump's pro-white collar crime agenda seems pretty open at this point," Stoller wrote in response to the Cuellar pardon.
As the New York Times reported earlier this year, Trump has employed "the vast power of his office to redefine criminality to suit his needs—using pardons to inoculate criminals he happens to like, downplaying corruption and fraud as crimes, and seeking to stigmatize political opponents by labeling them criminals."
"An offshoot of this strategy is relegating white-collar offenses to a rank of secondary importance behind violent and property crimes," the Times noted. "He has even tried to create a new red-alert category—what he calls 'immigrant crime,' even though studies have shown that immigrants are not more likely to commit violent offenses than people born in the country."
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'Shamelessly Corrupt': Trump Frees Private Equity Executive Convicted of Defrauding 10,000+ Investors
One elderly victim said they "lost a significant portion" of their retirement savings to David Gentile's $1.6 billion scheme.
Dec 01, 2025
In yet another gift to corporate criminals, President Donald Trump has reportedly used his executive authority to commute the seven-year prison sentence of a former private equity executive convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors of around $1.6 billion.
David Gentile, the founder and former CEO of GPB Capital, was convicted of securities and wire fraud last year and sentenced to prison in May, but he ended up serving just days behind bars. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the White House "argued that prosecutors had falsely characterized the business as a Ponzi scheme."
One victim said they lost their "whole life savings" to the scheme and are now living "check to check." Another, who described themselves as "an elderly victim," said they "lost a significant portion" of their retirement savings.
"This money was earmarked to help my two grandsons pay for college," the person said. "They had tragically lost their father and needed some financial assistance. So this loss attached my entire family."
In a statement following Gentile's sentencing earlier this year, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia—who was appointed to the role by Trump's loyalist FBI director, Kash Patel—said the private equity executive and his co-defendant, Jeffry Schneider, "wove a web of lies to steal more than one billion dollars from investors through empty promises of guaranteed profits and unlawfully rerouting funds to provide an illusion of success."
"The defendants abused their high-ranking positions within their company to exploit the trust of their investors and directly manipulate payments to perpetuate this scheme," said Raia. "May today’s sentencing deter anyone who seeks to greedily profit off their clients through deceitful practices."
Critics said Trump's commutation of Gentile's sentence sends the opposite message: That the administration is soft on corporate crime and rich fraudsters despite posturing as fierce protectors of the rule of law and throwing the book at the vulnerable.
"Trump will deport an Afghan living in the US with Temporary Protected Status if he is accused of stealing $1,000," said US Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). "But he’ll set a white dude free who was convicted of stealing $1.6 billion from American citizens to go commit more crime."
After criticizing former President Joe Biden for commuting the sentences of death-row prisoners, Trump has wielded his pardon power to spare political allies—including January 6 rioters—and rich executives while his administration works to "delegitimize the very concept of white-collar crime."
Since the start of Trump's second term, his administration has halted or dropped more than 160 federal enforcement actions against corporations, according to the watchdog group Public Citizen. White-collar criminals reportedly view Trump as their "get-out-of-jail-free card."
"The most shamelessly corrupt administration in history," journalist Wajahat Ali wrote in response to the Gentile commutation.
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Corporations, Not Immigrants, Are Driving a US Crime Wave
Even the Cato Institute found that incarceration rates for immigrants are far lower than those for the native-born.
Sep 28, 2025
Fear of street crime and criminals is a politically charged issue. Politicians stoke that fear to gain the consent of voters, from the anti-Black Willie Horton commercial ads of US GOP President George H. W. Bush against Democrat Michael Dukakis in the presidential campaign of 1988 to President Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2024 successful runs for the White House. After decades of economic globalization and climate disruptions, the tough-on-crime platform has evolved from anti-Blackness to migrant demonization. While the former remains central to US politics, the latter demonizes the national origin of criminals, actual and fictional, right up to the president castigating immigration as an invasion creating social ruination at the United Nations recently.
How does such rhetoric match up with data on incarceration for immigrants and the native-born in the US.? We turn to a new study from the Cato Institute, a contributor to the Department of Government Efficiency, a wrecking ball on federal programs and workforce, and Project 2025, the Trump White House’s playbook for restructuring US democracy.
Cato scholars Alex Nowrasteh and Krit Chanwong analyzed annual data from the American Community Survey and found that incarceration rates for immigrants are far lower than those for the native-born.
To this end the duo plotted “the incarceration risk for individuals born in 1990 by immigration status. For the 1990 cohort, native-born Americans were 267% more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants by age 33. Eleven percent of native-born Americans in that year-born cohort have been incarcerated compared to just 3% of immigrants. Other countries really are sending their best.”
In contrast, White House border czar Tom Homan is involved with federal immigration raids that, according to him, are “targeting the worst of the worst.” Homan allegedly took $50,000 in a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting recently.
What about the incarceration risks for immigrants and native-born Americans who are Asian, Hispanic, Black, and white?
Immigrants born in 1990 had a significantly lower incarceration risk than native-born Americans for all races and ethnicities born in the same year. All (legal plus illegal) Hispanic, Asian, Black, and white immigrants as groups each have a lower incarceration rate than white native-born Americans. Asian illegal immigrants have the lowest incarceration risks at around 0.08%.
Here’s a reason why immigrants may have lower incarceration rates. “Noncitizen criminals who are incarcerated are deported after serving their sentences,” according to Alex Nowrasteh and Krit Chanwong, “which means they don’t respond to future American surveys because they are no longer on American soil. Put another way, our study measures whether the respondents have ever been incarcerated.”
All things equal, one thing is clear. Immigrants are not driving a crime wave in the US. There is a wave of corporate crime stateside, however, with companies such as Boeing and its 737 MAX aircraft crashes a case in point.
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'Corporate Crime Pays' Under Trump as His Agencies Drop Enforcement Against 165 Companies
"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said the author of a new Public Citizen report.
Aug 14, 2025
During the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn or suspended enforcement actions against 165 companies in sectors across the U.S. economy, with Big Tech benefiting most from federal agencies' lax approach to corporate crime.
A report released Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that the Trump administration has halted or ended a third of misconduct investigations and enforcement actions targeting technology firms—including behemoths such as Meta, Tesla, and Google.
Both Meta and Google donated to Trump's inaugural fund, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent big in support of the president's 2024 White House bid. Public Citizen found that the tech corporations that have benefited from Trump administration decisions to drop enforcement efforts have spent a combined $1.2 billion trying to influence the president.
"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the new report. "To Big Tech corporations, this sends the message there is little risk in breaking the law in pursuit of profit—especially if you are an ally of the administration."
"For insiders," Claypool added, "corporate crime pays."
"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing."
Public Citizen's report comes amid growing scrutiny of what one critic recently described as "the incredible shrinking Trump antitrust enforcers."
Despite claims of a "surging MAGA antitrust movement," Trump's Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have repeatedly shown a willingness to bow to White House-connected lobbyists and allow corporate consolidation to proceed unabated. Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the Trump DOJ settled a Biden-era legal challenge against UnitedHealth Group, allowing the monopolist to swallow yet another competitor.
"The second Trump administration has now become a pay-to-play operation where influential MAGA lobbyists paid millions by large corporations use their clout with the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi to overrule the enforcers and push through mergers," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote following news of the UnitedHealth settlement.
"It seems that if you're a company and can pony up the money," Dayen added, "you can get whatever regulatory treatment you wish. Bribery has gone in a few short months from a prohibited activity to the coin of the realm in Trump's America."
As Public Citizen's report showed, tech giants have been the chief beneficiaries of what the group characterized as the Trump administration's corrupt approach to corporate crime enforcement.
At the start of Trump's second term, at least 104 tech corporations faced more than 140 federal investigations and enforcement actions. The Trump administration has withdrawn or halted nearly 50 of those enforcement actions, Public Citizen found.
"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. "For Big Tech, a relative pittance in political spending has generated gigantic returns in dropped prosecutions, policy U-turns, and aggressive administration support for Big Tech's global agenda."
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Boeing Jet Crashes Weeks After 'Sweetheart Deal' With Trump DOJ to Avoid Criminal Prosecution
"If Trump's DOJ hadn't worked out a deal to help Boeing avoid going to trial for its crimes, that trial would be starting on Monday."
Jun 12, 2025
A Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner jet carrying 242 passengers and crew members crashed in a residential area in western India shortly after takeoff on Thursday afternoon local time, a catastrophic incident that occurred weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump's Justice Department cut a deal allowing the aircraft manufacturer to avoid criminal responsibility for two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.
"If Trump's DOJ hadn't worked out a deal to help Boeing avoid going to trial for its crimes, that trial would be starting on Monday," Public Citizen researcher Rick Claypool pointed out following the crash.
The cause of the crash wasn't immediately clear, and Boeing said in a statement that it was "working to gather more information." India's health minister said that "many people" were killed when the London-bound plane crashed on the campus of a local medical college, and a local police commissioner told reporters that no one who was aboard the jet appeared to have survived.
(Update: It was later reported that at least one passenger, British national Vishwashkumar Ramesh, survived.)
India's minister of civil aviation wrote on social media that "rescue teams have been mobilized, and all efforts are being made to ensure medical aid and relief support are being rushed to the site."
The crash was believed to be the first deadly incident involving the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a wide-body aircraft that entered commercial service in 2011.
A photo taken in the aftermath of the crash shows the tail of Air India Flight 171 on top of a building in Ahmedabad.
A view of the site after a Boeing crashed just after takeoff on June 12, 2025. (Photo: Central Industrial Security Force/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Boeing's stock plummeted following news of the crash, which is certain to heighten scrutiny of the company's safety record.
Whistleblowers and experts have accused Boeing of cutting corners on safety to meet production quotas and maximize profits. Last year, an engineer who worked on the 787 Dreamliner told members of Congress that Boeing was "taking shortcuts" to "speed up production and delivery" of the jet.
"Boeing adopted these shortcuts in its production processes based on faulty engineering and faulty evaluation of available data, which has allowed potentially defective parts and defective installations in 787 fleet," the engineer, Sam Salehpour, alleged in written testimony presented to a Senate committee in April 2024.
"This isn't just a betrayal of the victims and their families, but sends a chilling message: Even the most egregious corporate misconduct will be tolerated if a company is powerful enough and backs the right administration."
Last month, Boeing—a major federal contractor in the U.S.—reached what critics decried as a "sweetheart deal" with the Trump Justice Department to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading American regulators about the 737 MAX, two of which crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing nearly 350 people in total.
Boeing, which donated $1 million to U.S. President Donald Trump's inaugural fund, agreed to pay $1.1 billion in exchange for avoiding criminal responsibility.
"The deal marks one of the most shocking lapses of criminal enforcement against a major corporation in memory," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said after the deal was announced. "The Trump administration touts how it is tough on crime, but when it comes to the world's most powerful institutions, it is an all-time patsy."
William McGee, a senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, said earlier this month that "more than six years after two horrific Boeing 737 MAX accidents claimed 346 lives, the Trump DOJ is letting the company pay its way out of any accountability."
"Despite a trove of new evidence from whistleblowers, inspectors, and aviation experts, and even after another terrifying MAX incident last year, the Trump-Vance admin is once again siding with a massive and politically-connected corporation over public safety," said McGeen. "This isn't just a betrayal of the victims and their families, but sends a chilling message: Even the most egregious corporate misconduct will be tolerated if a company is powerful enough and backs the right administration."
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Corporate Crime Enforcement Cratered Under Biden—And It's Set to Get Worse Under Trump
"Now that Trump is in power, there’s every reason to expect a drop off in corporate enforcement from the already low Biden baseline," said the author of a new analysis.
Apr 17, 2025
An analysis released Thursday offers both a scathing indictment of the Biden administration's lax approach to corporate crime enforcement and a warning of what's to come under President Donald Trump, whose administration is packed with billionaires and former lobbyists with close business ties.
The new report from Public Citizen, based on data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, shows that former President Joe Biden's Justice Department prosecuted just 80 corporations during his final year in office—the lowest level of any year over the past three decades.
"Over the course of the four fiscal years that correspond to Biden's four-year term, the DOJ brought fewer prosecutions against corporations than any of the previous four U.S. presidents over the course of any four-year term," Public Citizen found.
But the first few months of the second Trump administration have provided good reason to believe corporate crime enforcement could be headed for a new low.
"Corporate enforcement plummeted the first time Trump took office, and the current administration has already halted or dropped more than 100 enforcement actions against corporate misconduct," Public Citizen observed.
Trump's Justice Department, headed by former corporate lobbyist Pam Bondi, "inherited at least 188 investigations and cases against alleged corporate misconduct from the Biden DOJ, 27 of which have been halted and ten of which have already been dismissed or withdrawn," the group added, pointing to its corporate enforcement tracker.
The president also issued "what may be the first ever presidential pardon for a corporate criminal" when he used his clemency power to let the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX off the hook.
Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the new report, said in a statement that "the Biden administration's broken promise to crack down on corporate crime was a tragic missed opportunity to restore faith in the Justice Department by demonstrating that the wealthy and powerful are not above the law."
"Now that Trump is in power," Claypool added, "there's every reason to expect a drop off in corporate enforcement from the already low Biden baseline."
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Criminal Corporations Are Not People, But Trump Just Pardoned One Anyway
"If you're a corporation in a favored industry, you can break the law. You can get caught. You can be prosecuted and sentenced with a $100 million fine, and it doesn't matter," said one consumer advocate.
Apr 03, 2025
In what could be a U.S. first, President Donald Trump last week pardoned a criminal corporation, a move that largely flew under the proverbial radar amid his pardon spree for white-collar criminals including at least one of his supporters.
On March 28, Trump pardoned HDR Global Trading, the owner and operator of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX; company co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed; and former business development chief Gregory Dwyer.
The company and the four men hads each pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act "by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate" anti-money laundering program, as required by law. In January, the U.S. Department of Justicesentenced BitMEX to a fine of $100 million, while the executives were sentenced to criminal probation and ordered to pay civil fines.
While experts noted that Trump acted within his rights to pardon the corporation, there is no known precedent for a president taking such action.
Trump's corporate pardon sends a clear message: “If you’re a corporation in a favored industry, you can break the law. You can get caught. You can be prosecuted and sentenced with a $100 million fine, and it doesn’t matter”
[image or embed]
— Rick Claypool (@rickclaypool.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Noting the U.S. Supreme Court's highly controversial 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling—which affirmed corporate personhood and the dubious notion that unlimited outside spending on political campaigns is free speech—Stanford Law School professor Bernadette Meyler told The Intercept that "while we have seen the rise of a trend of treating corporations as persons in other areas of law, we haven't seen that so far in the area of pardoning."
Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and preeminent pardons expert, wrote for The Hill on Tuesday that the BitMEX pardons send the message that "companies involved in financial crimes don't have to worry about accountability under this president, as least when it comes to crypto, for reasons that he has no incentive to ever make known."
"BitMEX can continue its prior criminal practices with federal impunity, and maybe even rely on the pardon to thwart future investigations into related conduct by federal lawmakers or state prosecutors," Wehle added. "The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people, including the more than 77 million who might finally be realizing that they voted for lawlessness last November."
"The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people."
Brandon Garrett, a Duke University law professor specializing in corporate crime and punishment, told The Intercept that the BitMEX pardons are part of a wider pattern of impunity under Trump, who "now seems to be systematically pardoning corporate malefactors left and right without respect, really, to any real serious consideration about the merits of the cases [or] the larger policy implications of issuing these pardons."
As the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen recently noted, "The Trump administration has dropped, withdrawn, or halted investigations and enforcement actions against over 100 corporations in its first two months in office."
Beneficiaries include companies owned or led by Trump donors or allies, including private prison giant GEO Group; Zelle network banks JPMorgan and Bank of America; crypto firms Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, OpenSea, Ripple, and Robinhood; and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
"Trump's corporate pardons show the president's true base is the billionaire executives and corporate elites lining up to indulge their greed at the trough of Trump's corruption," Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool said last week. "Trump's soft-on-corporate crime approach invites a corporate crime spree and potentially catastrophic abuses for America's consumers, workers, and communities."
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman added that the Trump administration's "effective no-enforcement policy against corporations virtually guarantees more financial scams, more workplace discrimination, more poisoning of the air and water, more food contamination, more fraud, more disease, and more preventable death."
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