How Trump is undermining the fight against public corruption
5/7/202618 min
The Trump administration has taken multiple actions that experts warn are undermining the fight against public corruption. We discuss what that looks like and the implications for democracy and the rule of law.
This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Ashley Lopez· Host0:28
[upbeat music] Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez, I cover politics.
Ryan Lucas· Co-host0:37
I'm Ryan Lucas, I cover the Justice Department.
Mara Liasson· Co-host0:39
And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.
Ashley Lopez· Host0:42
Today on the podcast, we dig into actions by the Trump administration that experts say are undermining the fight against public corruption. Ryan, you've been reporting on this. Can you tell us what you found?
Ryan Lucas· Co-host0:53
Well, there are two things in particular that I looked at when looking at the question of public corruption. Uh, one of them is pardons that President Trump has, uh, issued for former elected officials, uh, and their co-conspirators. Uh, and I found that there are at least 15 former elected officials and co-conspirators of theirs convicted of or charged with corruption that the president has pardoned this term, so since January of last year. Uh, that's an average of almost one a month. Um, and the examples, uh, run from a, a former Arkansas state lawmaker, former Tennessee State House Speaker,