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When Public Office Becomes Private Property
Trust collapses when watchdogs are fired and rules are ignored. But public pressure still works — if we use it.
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At the beginning of 2025, Mark Greenblatt, then Inspector General at the Department of the Interior, opened his inbox to find an email that ended his 23-year career in public service. No explanation. No notice. Just “thank you for your service.”
Within hours, 16 other inspectors general across federal agencies got the same message.
These are the watchdogs of the executive branch — nonpartisan officials placed in these roles at the direction of Congress — whose only loyalty is to the taxpayer. Their job is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. Firing them all at once isn’t just strange. It’s dangerous.
Because without watchdogs, you don’t get oversight. You get cover-ups.
The Slow Creep of Corruption
America has been fighting corruption since before we were a country. The Founders built safeguards — the Emoluments Clause, separation of powers, inspectors general — to stop any one person from turning public office into private gain. But those guardrails are now cracking under strain.
As Georgetown professor Jodi Vittori puts it, corruption is “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” It’s not always a suitcase of cash.
It’s when officials profit off the public trust.
When politicians trade stocks in the industries they regulate.
When judges accept lavish “friendship” vacations.
When presidents take gifts from foreign governments and call it diplomacy.
For a long time, the United States was a world leader in fighting this. We literally helped create the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a law that made it illegal for U.S. companies to bribe foreign officials. But by 2025, our reputation had slipped to 28th in the world on Transparency International’s corruption index. Beyond the number, it’s a warning light on the dashboard of democracy.
Drain the Swamp, Then Fill It Back Up
When Donald Trump first ran for president, “Drain the Swamp” was his rallying cry. By his second term, the swamp wasn’t drained — it was monetized. Lobbyists ran agencies they once lobbied. Billionaires got cabinet jobs. Pardons went to donors. Inspectors general were replaced by political loyalists. The Office of Government Ethics and the Office of Special Counsel — two of the few agencies meant to keep leaders honest — were gutted.
As Kedric Payne from our strategic partner Campaign Legal Center put it:
“If you have a tone set at the top that ethics is not a priority, the public loses trust, and our democracy is chipped away.”
Once that tone becomes culture, corruption trickles down. It normalizes grift. And suddenly, a government “for the people” starts looking a lot like a company run for profit.
A Government of Themselves, by Themselves, for Themselves
The Founders feared monarchy because kings used power for private enrichment. Today, the threat isn’t crowns, it’s conflicts. When lawmakers trade stocks in industries they regulate, when justices accept half-million-dollar trips from wealthy benefactors, when presidents run side hustles in cryptocurrency or real estate, we inch closer to what experts call state capture, which is a government bent toward the financial interests of those in power.
Vittori warns that in a captured state, leaders need impunity — freedom from consequence — to keep the money flowing. That means bending the rule of law, rewriting ethics codes, or simply ignoring them. “You can’t have free and fair elections if you’re stealing,” she says, “so you make sure elections aren’t completely free or fair.” That’s how democracies slide… through quiet normalization.
Why This Matters (And What We Can Do)
When corruption feels abstract, it’s easy to tune out. But as Payne reminds us, the impact is local: roads full of potholes, underfunded schools, hospitals closing. When officials profit instead of serving, the cost lands on ordinary people.
That’s why the Campaign Legal Center fights for something deceptively simple: integrity. They’re pushing for bans on lobbyists running federal agencies, stricter conflict-of-interest laws, and permanent protections for inspectors general.
The goal isn’t to shame or scold — it’s to rebuild trust in government by making ethics enforcement real again. Because the alternative isn’t just corruption. It’s collapse.
A Final Thought
The Founders knew what they were doing when they built checks and balances into the bones of this republic. They understood that power, left unchecked, will always drift toward self-interest. Their fight against corruption wasn’t theoretical — it was patriotic.
We’re the heirs to that vigilance. And if we want to keep what they built, it starts with holding power to account — without fear or favor.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of “Democracy Decoded: How Corruption and Abuses of Power Threaten Democracy” below to hear from the people fighting to restore integrity to American government.
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