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HOUSE DEMOCRATS SQUANDER THE OPPORTUNITY ON TRUMPIAN CORRUPTION  
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Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
December 23, 2025
The American Prospect
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_ Democrats have a golden opportunity to be the anti-corruption
party, but the House caucus is not seizing it. _

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks during a press
conference, December 18, 2025., Samuel Corum/Sipa USA via AP Images

 

Donald Trump promised to “drain the swamp” of corruption in D.C.,
but is in fact running the most corrupt administration
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American history. The border czar Tom Homan reportedly took tens of
thousands of dollars in a CAVA bag
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while the Trump family has amassed around $5 billion in crypto wealth,
the administration has dropped cases or reduced penalties in 60
percent
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of enforcement actions against crypto firms. Recent reporting
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from _The New York Times_ suggests that Commerce Secretary Howard
Lutnick may have violated ethics rules by promoting data center
buildout that will enrich his family.

Stephen Miller recently sold shares
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in mining firm MP Materials at an elevated price immediately following
a deal with the government (which may, worryingly, not even be a
breach of our outdated and paper-thin ethics laws). The military
recently signed a $620 million contract
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drones from a startup that has never manufactured drones before, but
does have Donald Trump Jr. on its board. Trump is even building a
ballroom
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named after himself, funded by corporate (likely tax-deductible
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donations. He has also rebranded the United States Institute of Peace
and the Kennedy Center as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace
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and the Trump-Kennedy Center
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respectively. The latter move is in open violation of congressional
statute, but that did not stop Trump goons from inexpertly slapping
new text on the building so it reads
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“The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the
Performing Arts.”

In sum, across the government, Trump’s big-dollar donors are raking
in all kinds of money or favors
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Simply keeping track of it all requires constant work
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The American people are noticing. All the way back in May, Navigator
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that a 54 percent majority of Americans already believed that the
Trump administration was increasing the level of corruption in
Washington. Another poll released in August
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from the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that 65 percent of
respondents believed Donald Trump was somewhat or very corrupt. In
September, YouGov asked
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point-blank whether respondents thought the president would accept a
bribe; 53 percent said yes. A whopping 73 percent said they believed a
member of Congress would accept a bribe.

This would seem to be an opportunity for Democrats. Polling released
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at the start of August by End Citizens United found that a whopping 89
percent of voters think that tackling corruption should be a
“somewhat or very big priority.” It also found that messaging and
policy tackling corruption helped Democrats improve on the generic
ballot. The ads practically write themselves: “Wonder why Trump
hasn’t brought prices down or fixed any problems? Because he is
running the government for himself and his billionaire cronies
exclusively.”

Alas, thus far Democrats’ House leadership has prioritized
protecting their own corrupt incumbents and the party’s personal
insider trading opportunities.

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TX) VOTES against his party more than almost
anyone, and in 2024 the Biden administration indicted him for alleged
bribery and money laundering. Two of his aides pled guilty to
conspiring to launder money. Yet when Trump pardoned Cuellar
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earlier this month—seeming to imply that the president had done so
as part of a quid pro quo for Cuellar to switch parties—his
Democratic peers quickly voted 17-7 to restore his ranking membership
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on the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Homeland
Security. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also warmly welcomed
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the pardon.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) studiously ignores Cuellar’s
awful record, but was outraged
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when the progressive Chuy García seemed to time his retirement so as
to hand the seat to his chosen successor—a somewhat tawdry practice,
of course, but not at all uncommon and not remotely close to what
Cuellar is accused of doing.

Elsewhere, when Jeffries selected members
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to lead Democrats’ AI commission, he picked five members with deeply
pro-AI sentiment and donor rolls. Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Ted Lieu of
California are both among Big Tech’s most reliable allies in
Congress. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is a former Microsoft executive
who has taken millions from the PAC Fairshake, which has a sister PAC
dedicated to electing pro-AI candidates that shares many of
Fairshake’s funders and staff. This is, as the _Prospect_ previously
covered, at a time when AI and tech companies are engaging in
monumental glad-handing with the Trump administration, including being
among the biggest benefactors of the Trump ballroom.

Now, Jeffries and House leadership appear to be slow-rolling an effort
to hold a floor vote on a bill to end congressional stock trading. If
leadership whipped votes for the ongoing discharge petition to force a
vote, it already has enough Republican signees to succeed. But, as
the_ Prospect_ previously reported
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there are both political and financial pressures pushing leadership
the other way. Members in leadership see their stock portfolios
outperform
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other congressmembers’ by nearly 50 percent, and congressmembers’
portfolios already handily outperform those of the general public.
Some sources had indicated that leadership might prefer not to solve
the problem so that a ban is something that can be promised in midterm
campaigns.

Now, additional reporting
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has Jeffries pushing both representatives and outside advocates to
back a separate discharge petition along party lines that Democratic
leadership is pushing, as an attempt to undercut the bipartisan
effort. If Democrats kill a realistic bipartisan chance to tackle real
corruption, with an overwhelmingly popular policy, it leaves them with
a distinct stench of corruption, undermining any future attempts to
press the advantage on Trump’s mounting pay-to-play governance.

In order to run against corruption, particularly from the left, it is
very helpful to have a clean ethics record. Asking voters to support
candidates doing insider trading over those taking open bribes is not
a strong argument. Many will throw up their hands, assume everyone in
D.C. is equally corrupt, and vote on other grounds. Unfortunately, it
seems requiring Democrats to keep their noses clean is too much for
Jeffries and his lieutenants.

_This article is from The Revolving Door Project, a _Prospect_
partner, which scrutinizes the executive branch and presidential
power. Follow them at __therevolvingdoorproject.org_
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_Dylan Gyauch-Lewis is a senior researcher at the Revolving Door
Project._

* Trump Corruption
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* Democrats
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* Lost Cause
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