By James J. Devine
In the dead of night, while America slept, the Trump administration quietly pardoned nearly 2,000 terrorists—domestic insurgents who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in service of a failed coup. But that was just the opening act.
Now, in a move that reeks of corruption so thick you could choke on it, Trump has effectively declared open season on corporate crime, dropping, freezing, or gutting 109 federal investigations and enforcement actions against some of the greediest, dirtiest corporations in America.
That’s right. One in five major corporate cases—cases meant to protect workers, consumers, and the very air we breathe—have been torpedoed in just two months.
The Corporate Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
Public Citizen’s damning new report reveals the full scope of the legalized looting now underway:
- 45 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) cases—gutted. Nearly every active investigation into financial predators, from payday lenders to big banks, has been deep-sixed.
- 30 Justice Department cases—frozen. Civil rights? Environmental crimes? Foreign bribery? Gone.
- 18 SEC investigations, including 14 into crypto scams—vanished. Because why bother policing the Wild West of finance when your donors are the outlaws?
- 7 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) cases defending transgender workers from abuse—dismissed. Because cruelty, as always, is the point.
And who’s getting away with it? Trump’s cronies, of course.
- JPMorgan, Bank of America—let off the hook for ripping off consumers.
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX—no consequences for labor abuses.
- GEO Group, the private prison ghouls—rewarded for locking up immigrants in hellish conditions.
- Crypto grifters like Coinbase and Ripple—free to keep scamming the rubes.
“A License to Steal, Cheat, and Poison”
Lisa McCormick, the anti-establishment progressive Democrat who challenged disgraced former Senator Bob Menendez in 2018, didn’t mince words:
“This is a full-scale surrender to corporate tyranny. Trump isn’t just turning a blind eye to crime—he’s rewarding the criminals. The same Wall Street crooks who crashed our economy, the same polluters who poison our children, the same union-busting billionaires who crush workers—they’re all getting a free pass while the rest of America pays the price.”
Rick Claypool, Public Citizen’s research director, backed her up with cold, hard facts:
“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. Trump’s soft-on-corporate-crime approach invites a corporate crime spree and potentially catastrophic abuses for America’s consumers, workers, and communities.”
Robert Weissman, Public Citizen’s co-president, delivered the grim prognosis:
“The 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.”
The Fix Was Always In
Let’s be clear: This was the plan all along.
Trump didn’t just pardon the January 6 traitors—he rewarded them. Now, he’s doing the same for corporate America. The same corporations that funded his campaigns. The same CEOs who kissed his ring.
McCormick put it bluntly:
“This isn’t governance—it’s a protection racket. Trump is the godfather, and every corporate felon in America just got made.”
What’s Next?
If this is what Trump does in two months, imagine what four years will bring.
The regulators have been neutered. The cops have been called off. The thieves are running the treasury.
And the rest of us?
We’re just the suckers left holding the bill.