We Need to Throw More Criminal Businesspeople in Jail
White-collar crime is barely prosecuted in the United States. It’s time for that to change.
Donald Trump speaks during a briefing at the White House on August 13, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)
Donald Trump loves tweeting the words “law and order,” fully committed to the idea that communicating to his base with racist dog whistles at the volume of a jet engine is the best way to win reelection.
Unsurprisingly, his cries of “law and order” don’t apply to criminals from his own social strata. The Trump administration has been a boon to white-collar criminals whose lawbreaking is basically being ignored by its Justice Department. The data is staggering.
Prosecutions over the first three years of Donald Trump’s term, when compared with Barack Obama’s last twenty months in office, are down between 26 and 30 percent. Taking into account the Obama Justice Department saw sharp declines in white-collar prosecutions after 2010, the Trump administration’s inaction is staggering.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.