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This week’s newsletter highlights three litmus tests of the Biden administration’s commitment to holding the wealthy and powerful accountable to the public interest within their dwindling time in office:
- The continued use of toothless leniency agreements by Merrick Garland’s DOJ;
- The failed efforts to stop Republicans from slashing IRS funding that allows for investigations of tax fraud by the ultra-rich; and
- The urgent need for Biden to commute the sentence of whistleblower Charles Littlejohn.
DOJ Continues To Falter Under Garland, With Chaos Looming
The past week has seen dramatic revelations regarding the priorities and future of the DOJ.
As we’ve noted numerous times during Merrick Garland’s tenure, the Biden appointee’s slow-paced (and largely passive) approach to enforcing the law against the powerful has been a losing strategy for the public. The string of losses continued this week.
As our friend Rick Claypool observed, the DOJ announced its decision not to prosecute massive consulting firm McKinsey for advising Purdue Pharma to inflate the price of oxycontin during the opioid crisis. McKinsey was actually facing DOJ investigations over another set of crimes at the same time, for engaging in an illegal bribery scheme involving public officials in South Africa.
In both cases, DOJ offered McKinsey a leniency agreement consisting of a deferred prosecution agreement and a monetary settlement in place of ongoing criminal prosecution, despite there being grounds for both felony and misdemeanor charges in the oxycontin case (for obstructing DOJ’s investigation). Adding insult to injury, the DOJ’s press releases hail these agreements as victories in holding the powerful firm accountable, failing to note that even fines of several hundreds of million dollars are just a drop in the bucket (~4% of market value) for a firm valued at over $16 billion.
Also this week, Trump-appointed FBI Director Chris Wray announced his intention to step down once Trump takes office. This resignation is supposedly to avoid the political controversy over his predicted firing, but also ostensibly to clear the way for Trump to appoint the rightwing extremist nominee he’s announced, Kash Patel. Many have interpreted Wray’s decision as a disappointing show of loyalty to Trump. We would add that it’s the latest in a string of damning decisions by Wray, including prioritizing surveilling Black Lives Matter protestors advocating for racial justice over investigating demonstrated instances of white supremacist murders and terror—which is why we’ve been calling for Biden to fire Wray since the first few months of his presidency.
With the likes of Patel and Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for Attorney General, installed in top roles, the limitations of Garland’s conservative approach to running the DOJ appear even more stark than usual.
Garland’s approach to running DOJ relied on the idea of restoring “norms” after the chaos of the first Trump administration. (In fact, in a rare address to the DOJ workforce in September, Garland used the word “norms” no fewer than twelve times!) However, many have argued that this approach was not responsive to the reality of the post-Trump era, and the clear willingness for Republicans and MAGA-world actors to use parts of the government designed to be insulated from partisan politics to further their political agendas.
(Of particular concern under a Bondi DOJ is the fate of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)—which required Bondi to disclose her status as a lobbyist for the nation of Qatar through her work at Ballard Partners. The act hasn’t seen an update in thirty years, and it’s unclear whether the hotly anticipated new version, which the DOJ says will “narrow exemptions for foreign entities,” will be finalized before Trump takes office. Regardless, FARA could still be gutted under Trump.)
There’s little to no hope that any of the wins Garland cited in his address will withstand the force of a second Trump-era DOJ. However, the MANY losses due to acts of omission will endure, validating the significant doubts that Garland detractors, ourselves included, have cast on his approach to leading the department.
That said, Garland has a few remaining chances to demonstrate commitment to the purported goals of the Biden administration. One test, for instance, is whether Garland meets public demands to release Special Counsel Jack Smith’s highly anticipated report on Donald Trump’s role in the January 6th insurrection and efforts to steal the 2020 election. Needless to say, we think he should.
Protecting the IRS Should Be A Core Focus for Democrats
As our Dylan Gyauch-Lewis wrote for the Prospect this week, “For the second straight year, President Biden and the Democrats are poised to sacrifice a significant chunk of one of their biggest accomplishments: funding for the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats.” Dylan interviewed 14 progressive tax policy experts and advocates for economic justice in tax policy to write this piece. What she found: Biden’s compromise allowing Republicans to cut IRS funding is likely to reduce enforcement of tax laws on the richest people in the country, who, despite hoarding the majority of wealth in this country, are more expensive and challenging to prosecute for tax fraud than low-and middle-income Americans.
Dylan calls on Biden and Congressional Democrats to spend the final weeks of the administration developing “a firm line” on the issue of IRS budget cuts, to make it more politically and logistically costly for Republicans to continue attacking their funding. While the appropriations process is wonky, nuanced, and obfuscated—in the eyes of laypeople and experts alike, at times—a well-funded IRS is a crucial tool to recoup money from wealthy and powerful attempting to dodge taxes that apply to the rest of us.
And while Elon Musk seems to have killed the first continuing resolution, we’re skeptical that he will allow a fix to occur in the CRs that will eventually govern us. Biden’s 2023 dealmaking on the budget (after Zients had replaced Klain as Chief of Staff) remains a defeat that keeps on defeating the cause of basic fairness. We excoriated the deal at the time, and we stand by that critique today. A proper accounting of what went right and wrong in the Biden Administration is critical to learning how to do better in the future. Businesspeople cosplaying as political operatives like Jeffrey Zients (or Elon Musk) should never be put in position to wield political power.
Free Charles Littlejohn
This week, in conjunction with the Patriotic Millionaires, the Revolving Door Project launched a campaign urging President Joe Biden to commute the sentence of Charles Littlejohn, the IRS contractor who was sentenced to five years in prison after revealing the enormous scale of tax avoidance by super-wealthy Americans.
Check out freecharleslittlejohn.com, our accompanying press release, and the paragraphs below to learn more about why Littlejohn’s courageous intervention warrants clemency. On the “Free Charles Littlejohn” website, you’ll see a template letter that you can send electronically or mail to the White House.
It’s thanks to Littlejohn, who disclosed the tax records of then-President Donald Trump and other billionaire tax dodgers to reputable journalists at The New York Times and ProPublica, that we know just how little the nation’s ultra-rich pay in tax—often less than public school teachers and sometimes none at all. The United States’ rigged tax code is a constitutive element of the runaway inequality that imperils democracy and a livable climate. By exposing the scope of tax injustice, Littlejohn performed an invaluable public service.
Federal sentencing guidelines recommended a jail term of four to 10 months. However, after receiving a virulent letter from roughly two dozen congressional Republicans, Federal District Court Judge Ana Reyes condemned Littlejohn to 60 months behind bars. Remarkably, Littlejohn’s punishment is far more severe than what wealthy Americans convicted of tax evasion usually face. (For more on this point, see this new letter signed by multiple tax law professors, covered in Common Dreams).
When explaining why she hit Littlejohn with a punishment six times longer than the harshest recommendation, Reyes ludicrously characterized Littlejohn’s whistleblowing as “an attack on our constitutional democracy” even worse than January 6 insurrectionists’ deadly assault on the Capitol. But in sharp contrast to the anti-democratic actions of the pro-Trump mob, Littlejohn was motivated by a pro-democratic desire to curb the extreme inequality that endangers government of, by, and for the people.
Biden, who argued this week in The American Prospect that promoting tax fairness was one of his main accomplishments, ought to understand the importance of freeing Littlejohn, an advocate for an equitable tax system who has already spent over seven months locked up.
Our Kenny Stancil and Patriotic Millionaires’ Bob Lord explain in greater detail why Biden must commute Littlejohn’s sentence in a new opinion piece in Rolling Stone.
Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
Meet the Terrifying Line of Shock Troops Likely to Make Up the New Trump DOJ
Biden Must Free the Man Who Exposed Trump’s Tax Avoidance
Emma Marsano on the Biden Administration’s Failure to Address Corporate Crime
Elizabeth Warren Urges Trump To Place Guardrails On Top Ally Elon Musk
Trump 2.0 Corruption and Ethics Violations Ahead
Lawmakers turn to Elon Musk in a ‘Hail Mary’ to pass Kids Online Safety Act
Trump’s Cohort of Cronies and Crooks | The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich
Donating to Trump’s inauguration is a last-minute chance for tech moguls to make nice
New Campaign Urges Biden to Commute Sentence of ‘Public Hero’ Who Leaked Trump Tax Data
Inequality.org: Pressuring President Biden To Free a Principled Advocate for Tax Justice