This Anti-Corruption Tracker focuses on the erosion or dismantling of oversight and accountability systems within the United States Executive Branch—watchdog offices closed, enforcement units disbanded, oversight officials removed, and transparency rules hollowed out. These changes don’t always make headlines, but together, they create a more permissive environment for corruption and abuse of power to take root.
Tensions between the exercise of power and its oversight exist in every administration. What sets the current moment apart is the scale and coordination of changes that undermine the systems meant to detect, deter, and document abuse of power. This tracker includes, for example, firing inspectors general and independent agency heads, pausing or narrowing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, disbanding key investigative and prosecutive units, and asserting greater presidential control over independent agencies—moves that significantly reduce internal accountability mechanisms and shift power toward political appointees.
While some of these changes may reflect real reform goals, taken cumulatively, they change not just how – but whether – use of power is scrutinized and constrained, and, ultimately, whether it is exercised in the public interest.
Each entry below includes a date, short description, and additional context of why the change matters. Key topics include:
This is a regularly updated document. If we’ve missed something, let us know at LTE@justsecurity.org. You can find more about our overall approach to the tracker and our corresponding series here.
| Date Of Action | Topics | Action | Additional Context | Government Entity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-07-22 | Oversight and Watchdog Functions | The administration has reportedly moved to block the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from investigating its withholding of federal funds, with support from Republican members of Congress. | The GAO enforces a post-Watergate statute called the Impoundment Act that bars the executive branch from defying congressional spending directives. In response to scrutiny, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought has defended the administration’s actions as efforts to manage taxpayer funds more efficiently and criticized the GAO, calling it a “a quasi-independent arm of the legislative branch that played a partisan role in the first-term impeachment hoax.” At the same time, House Republicans have introduced legislation to significantly weaken GAO’s capacity—proposing to slash its budget by half—a move that could gut its staff and curtail its ability to oversee federal spending. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-07-17 | Federal Workforce | President signs an executive order creating a new classification of non-career federal workers, “Schedule G” employees, to expand the number of non-career political appointees within federal agencies. | The order allows agencies to reclassify a broader range of roles as “policy-determining” or “policy-influencing,” enabling political appointees to fill positions that have historically been staffed by career civil servants. Analysts warn that Schedule G, like its predecessor Schedule F, could disempower the apolitical, merit-based civil service and weaken the institutional independence necessary for objective governance. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-07-13 | Oversight and Watchdog Functions | Attorney General Pam Bondi dismisses the DOJ’s Director of its Ethics Office, the senior DOJ official responsible for overall leadership of the department’s ethics program. | The Director serves as Designated Agency Ethics Official (DAEO), the top department official responsible for counseling senior political appointees on ethics and conflict-of-interest rules. The Director oversees the entire agency ethics program, provides guidance on certifying senior officials’ financial disclosures, issues recusal and conflict-of-interest guidance, and serves as DOJ’s liaison to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The removal follows a broader personnel shake-up all linked to former Special Counsel Jack Smith. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-06-10 | Enforcement Priorities | Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announces new guidelines for FCPA investigations. Enforcement resumes but with a narrower scope focused on U.S. economic and national security interests. | The new guidelines emphasize that new FCPA investigations require senior approval and reprioritize enforcement toward serious bribery threats connected to national security interests, while reducing emphasis on routine or low-level cases. Specifically, the new guidance directs prosecutors to: limit the “undue burden on American companies operating abroad;” target enforcement actions against conduct that directly undermines US national interests; focus on cases involving criminal conduct by individuals; proceed expeditiously; and, consider collateral impacts throughout the investigation and resolution process. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-06-10 | Oversight and Watchdog Functions | Cara Petersen, the acting Enforcement Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), resigns. Petersen notes, “I have served under every Director and Acting Director in the Bureau’s history and never before have I seen the ability to perform our core mission so under attack.” | The CFPB, established by Congress after the 2008 financial crisis to investigate banking fraud and supervise banking services to individual customers using retail services. It broadened the scope of its supervision in 2024 to technology firms that provide digital payment services: Google Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, Samsung Pay, Cash App, and PayPal. | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) |
| 2025-05-29 | Federal Workforce | The White House Office of Personnel Management introduces a new Hiring Plan that requires agencies to add new assessment and essay questions that will test career applicants’ support for the president’s Executive Orders and other policies, and requires a senior-level political appointee to oversee the hiring process instead of a career supervisor. | The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was created in 1979 as part of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. It sets presidential priorities across the federal workforce, administers USAJOBS, conducts background investigations, and manages federal retirement and insurance benefits. By centralizing hiring authority under political appointees, introducing ideologically driven assessments, and restricting data collection, the OPM’s new Merit Hiring Plan could enable bipartisan favoritism and weaken accountability. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-05-27 | Transparency and Public Access | Employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs are reportedly required to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in preparation for significant staffing cuts. | NDAs of this kind are rare for this kind of personnel matter. Federal employees already have a duty to not disclose pre-decisional matters to the public. A House Oversight committee inquiry notes that extending agreements beyond an employee’s tenure “could chill employees from disclosing violations of waste, fraud, and abuse.” Others note that this is part of a growing trend of secrecy across the federal government. | Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) |
| 2025-05-16 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | The FBI disbands its public corruption squad in the Washington Field Office, known internally as “CR15.” Though the Bureau indicated that public corruption investigations will continue, cases will now be handled by other units without a dedicated squad. | CR15 specialized in probing major public corruption, including alleged misconduct by members of Congress and investigations tied to the Capitol riot. The FBI says that investigations will continue through other field units. | Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) |
| 2025-05-14 | Transparency and Public Access | Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fires two members of the National Intelligence Council who reportedly helped facilitate the FOIA release of an intelligence assessment that determined that the Tren de Aragua gang does not take orders from or operate in close coordination with the Maduro government. | Some suggest this firing was punishment for providing information that does not support the administration’s agenda. Retaliation against these officials has the potential to have a chilling effect on FOIA offices and on independent and objective intelligence across the government. | Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) |
| 2025-05-01 | Transparency and Public Access | President Trump signs Executive Order 14290, titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” halting direct funding to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). | Under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, Congress allocates federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), to help support and expand non-commercial broadcasting in the United States. The statute does not grant the president or any other agency purview over the CPB. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-05-01 | Enforcement Priorities | The DOJ reportedly suspends the long-standing policy requiring the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section (PIN) to review and approve all public-corruption prosecutions, and has reassigned oversight of election-fraud, including allegations of election disinformation, cases away from PIN. | The PIN review requirement was designed to add an internal check against politically motivated or unfounded indictments of public officials. Eliminating this safeguard could leave charging decisions more vulnerable to political influence. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-04-23 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump issues an executive memorandum directing the DOJ, in consultation with the Treasury, to investigate ActBlue, a major fundraising platform for Democratic campaigns. | The directive marks a notable expansion of White House involvement in DOJ-led campaign finance investigations. Recent reporting highlights concern among legal experts and lawmakers about a shift away from longstanding norms that seek to insulate prosecutorial decisions from political influence. | Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of the Treasury |
| 2025-04-23 | Federal Workforce | The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issues a proposed rule to revive and rename “Schedule F,” a Trump-era personnel category that would convert thousands of career civil servants into at-will employees. The proposal follows Executive Order 14171 and renames the classification “Schedule Policy/Career.” | The new proposed Schedule Policy/Career designation would apply to civil servants involved in “policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating” roles. While these employees would still be hired through merit-based processes, they would no longer be protected by Title 5 procedures governing discipline and removal—effectively rendering them at-will employees that serve at the pleasure of the President. | Office of Personnel Management (OPM) |
| 2025-04-11 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announces a multi-year settlement with four major law firms—Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and A&O Shearman Sterling—under which the firms affirm “merit-based” hiring, promotion, and retention; agree to discontinue any policies previously branded as “DEI”; and accept ongoing EEOC compliance monitoring. | This action follows Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas’ March 17, 2025 letters questioning the legality of private law firms’ DEI fellowships and affinity-group practices. A bipartisan group of former officials and others write that similar orders and actions risk chilling the independence of the legal profession. | Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) |
| 2025-04-09 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump signs a new memorandum, “Addressing Risks from Chris Krebs and Government Censorship,” directing every federal agency to revoke any security clearance held by former CISA Director Chris Krebs and his associates and orders a review of Krebs’ leadership of CISA and its activities since 2018. | The memorandum was issued four years after Krebs publicly declared the 2020 election “the most secure in American history,” contradicting President Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud. The text accuses Krebs of having “weaponized” his former office and labels him a “significant bad‑faith actor.” Mainstream coverage and fact‑checks describe the directive as a direct retaliation for Krebs’s election‑security assessment. Analysts warn that using clearance revocations and retroactive probes in response to such statements could chill future officials from offering candid advice on election integrity. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-04-09 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump signs Executive Order, “Addressing Risks from Susman Godfrey LLP,” directing clearance suspensions, federal-contract reviews, and access limits similar to earlier law-firm orders. | This order is one of several executive actions targeting major U.S. law firms for prior legal work the President described as personally detrimental. A bipartisan group of former officials and others write that such orders risk chilling the independence of the legal profession. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-04-09 | Enforcement Priorities | Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issues a Department-wide memorandum that (1) no taxpayer funds may be used for travel to or engagement with American Bar Association events and (2) DOJ employees, “when acting in their official capacities,” may not speak at, attend, or otherwise participate in ABA-hosted functions prohibits taxpayer funds from paying for any travel to or engagement with American Bar Association (ABA) events. | Blanche states the restriction is warranted because the ABA is in active litigation against the Department. The ABA has long served as a major convening body for the legal profession, with senior DOJ officials routinely attending in its events. In granting a preliminary injunction against a related grant termination, Judge Cooper (D.D.C.) observed that Blanche “candidly explained” the memo was issued in direct response to the ABA’s lawsuit and held that DOJ’s actions likely violate the First Amendment’s ban on reprisals for protected petitioning activity. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-04-07 | Oversight and Watchdog Functions | The Department of Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) target="_blank">announces a reorganization that consolidates its Region and Corporate Audit Directorates with the goal of improving the agency’s “operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness.” | The DCAA, established in 1965, conducts audits and provides financial advisory services for government contracts. Its primary purpose is to prevent corruption and safeguard taxpayer dollars spent in government contracts for defense-related expenses. | Department of Defense (DOD) |
| 2025-04-07 | Enforcement Priorities | Deputy Attorney General Blanche ends the Department’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) effective immediately. | NCET was established in February 2022 to investigate and prosecute serious cryptocurrency crimes, including fraud, money laundering, and illicit finance tied to cartels and terrorist organizations. Under Blanche’s April 7, 2025 memo titled “Ending Regulation by Prosecution,” the DOJ will shift focus away from prosecuting exchanges and wallet providers for regulatory violations. The memo states that enforcement will continue against defrauders, and those using crypto for terrorism, cartels, hacking, or human trafficking. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-04-03 | Transparency and Public Access | Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly cuts public records teams at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies within the department as part of sweeping layoffs in his “radical transparency” initiative. | Those offices were responsible for handling public information and compliance with the Freedom of Information Act—including responding to records requests and safeguarding personal data. | Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) |
| 2025-04-02 | Enforcement Priorities | Two senior officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s FCPA unit—Charles Cain (the unit’s chief since 2017) and Tracy Price (the unit’s deputy chief since 2018)—resign. Their resignations follow the administration’s decision to pause Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement reviews. | With Cain and Price stepping aside, the SEC joins the DOJ’s Fraud Section in losing senior officials that enforce the FCPA, potentially reducing capacity and deemphasizing anti-bribery enforcement across both agencies. | Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) |
| 2025-03-27 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump signs Executive Order 14250, “Addressing Risks from Wilmerhale LLP,” suspending the firm’s security clearances, directing agencies to terminate or withhold federal contracts, and restricting firm personnel from certain federal facilities. | This order is one of several executive actions targeting major U.S. law firms for prior legal work the President described as personally detrimental. A bipartisan group of former officials and others write that similar orders and memoranda risk chilling the independence of the legal profession. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-03-25 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump signs Executive Order, “Addressing Risks from Jenner & Block LLP,” instructing agencies to suspend the firm’s clearances, terminate federal contracts “to the maximum extent permitted by law,” and limit facility access. | This order is one of several executive actions targeting major U.S. law firms for prior legal work the President described as personally detrimental. A bipartisan group of former officials and others write that such orders risk chilling the independence of the legal profession. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-03-24 | Transparency and Public Access | The Office of Management and Budget removes a public-facing website that displayed how federal funding is apportioned to agencies, claiming that disclosure of such information is sensitive, predecisional, and deliberative. | As part of the Fiscal Year 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Congress enacted new legislation requiring OMB to make apportionments public. The rollback raises concerns about transparency in federal spending and limits the ability of Congress, watchdog groups, and the public to track how appropriated funds are controlled, delayed, or redirected within the executive branch. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-03-22 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump signs a memorandum, “Rescinding Security Clearances and Access to Classified Information from Specified Individuals,” revoking security clearances for 18 named figures, including whistle-blower attorney Mark Zaid. | Advocacy groups say that removing Zaid’s security clearance is “unrestrained retaliation” for “legally protected speech under Intelligence Community whistleblower laws,” potentially chilling future whistle‑blower advocacy. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-03-21 | Oversight and Watchdog Functions | DHS orders a reduction‑in‑force that shutters three internal oversight units — the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO), and the Citizenship & Immigration Services Ombudsman (CISOM) — placing more than 100 employees on leave. The department later reverses course (following a lawsuit), but a June 11, 2025 court filing says the offices remain “severely understaffed and unable to perform their statutory functions.” | DHS said the closures were meant to “remove bureaucratic hurdles” that “obstruct immigration enforcement.” Advocates and a bipartisan group of former officials argue the move eliminates key channels for civil‑rights complaints and detention oversight; plaintiffs now ask the court to monitor staffing and budget restoration. | Department of Homeland Security (DHS) |
| 2025-03-18 | Federal Workforce | President Trump fires two members of the Federal Trade Commission, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, before their terms end. | The FTC, established in 1914, is an independent agency whose mission is to protect the public from “deceptive or unfair business practices and unfair methods of competition.” The FTC has five commissioners who serve seven-year terms; the law requires that no more than three commissioners be from the same political party and allows removal by the President only “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” | Federal Trade Commission (FTC) |
| 2025-03-13 | Oversight and Watchdog Functions | Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly begins a sweeping restructuring of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, including replacing several senior JAGs with appointees outside the traditional promotion pipeline. | The unprecedented shake-up of uniformed military lawyers has prompted concerns among former Pentagon officials and others that it could compromise the neutrality of military legal advice and carry “wide‑ranging consequences for how the U.S. military conducts operations and disciplines personnel.” | Department of Defense (DOD) |
| 2025-03-11 | Enforcement Priorities | The DOJ’s Public Integrity Section is reportedly drastically downsized, with its 30-person staff cut to as few as five and remaining cases transferred to U.S. Attorney’s Offices nationwide. | Created in 1976 in response to Watergate, the DOJ's Public Integrity Section investigates and prosecutes alleged misconduct of public officials in all three branches of the federal government, as well as state and local public officials. This includes public corruption, election crimes, campaign finance offenses, and related misconduct by federal officials. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-03-10 | Enforcement Priorities | The DOJ does not attend the March 2025 quarterly meeting of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, the first absence since the working group's formation in 1994. | Since 1994, the DOJ has consistently sent representatives to these meetings, which oversee implementation of the OECD Anti‑Bribery Convention and monitor global enforcement of foreign-bribery laws. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-03-06 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump signs Executive Order 14230, “Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP,” suspending the firm’s security clearances, directing agencies to terminate or withhold federal contracts, and restricting firm personnel from certain federal facilities. | This order is one of several executive actions targeting major U.S. law firms for prior legal work the President described as personally detrimental. A bipartisan group of former officials and others write that similar orders and memoranda risk chilling the independence of the legal profession. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-03-06 | Enforcement Priorities | Several career prosecutors in the DOJ Fraud Section are reportedly either reassigned or fired, and numerous others in the section are encouraged to take a detail, or temporary assignment to work on non-white collar cases. | These changes suggest the Department may be shifting resources away from complex financial crime investigations. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-03-02 | Federal Workforce | The Department of Treasury announces that it will no longer enforce the Corruption Transparency Act (CTA). | The CTA, passed in 2021, was a bipartisan effort aimed at curtailing the use of shell companies and tracking flows of illicit money, in partnership with Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). | Department of Treasury |
| 2025-02-27 | Enforcement Priorities | The CFPB dismisses five enforcement actions against financial services companies accused of wrongdoing under the prior administration (cases against Capital One, Vanderbilt Mortgage, Heights Holding, Rocket Homes, and PHEAA). On March 5, the CFPB dropped its case against the company that runs the Zelle payment platform and three U.S. banks, which had been filed in December. | The CFPB was created by Congress in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to investigate banking fraud and oversee consumer financial services. In 2024, it expanded its supervisory authority to include technology companies offering digital payment platforms, like Apple Pay, Venmo, and PayPal. | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) |
| 2025-02-25 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump signs Executive Order 14237, “Addressing Risks from Paul Weiss,” directing agencies to suspend security clearances held by Paul Weiss lawyers (including, as directly named in the E.O., Mark Pomerantz); terminate or withhold all federal contracts and other benefits to the firm “to the maximum extent permitted by law”; and bar Paul Weiss employees from sensitive federal facilities and limit future hiring of the firm’s personnel. President Trump adds that “[g]lobal law firms have for years played an outsized role in undermining the judicial process and in the destruction of bedrock American principles.” | This order is one of several executive actions targeting major U.S. law firms for prior legal work the President described as personally detrimental. A bipartisan group of former officials and others write that such orders risk chilling the independence of the legal profession. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-02-25 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump issues a White House memorandum suspending the security clearances of all Covington & Burling lawyers who represented former Special Counsel Jack Smith and instructs agencies to terminate the firm’s federal engagements “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” | This order is one of several executive actions targeting major U.S. law firms for prior legal work the President described as personally detrimental. A bipartisan group of former officials and others write that similar orders and memoranda risk chilling the independence of the legal profession. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-02-23 | Enforcement Priorities | All USAID direct-hire personnel, with limited exceptions, are placed on administrative leave globally, effectively shuttering the department. This included those working on anti-corruption initiatives. | These cuts include defunding programs that focused on anti-corruption efforts, such as USAID's Dekleptification Guide, which included tools like public asset declarations and ownership registries to specialized institutions to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and rule on cases of grand corruption. It also cut their work in the anti-corruption space, which included establishing the permanent Anti-Corruption Center and providing technical assistance and developing technical guides to countering corruption worldwide. | U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) |
| 2025-02-18 | Transparency and Public Access | The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reportedly fires a significant number of staff from its privacy, communications, and FOIA teams—reportedly including its entire privacy office. When CNN filed a FOIA request, the agency reportedly replied, “Good luck with that; they just fired the whole privacy team.” | OPM’s privacy unit ensures federal employees’ personal data is protected and manages compliance with privacy laws and policies. FOIA and communications teams oversee government transparency and respond to public information requests. | Office of Personnel Management (OPM) |
| 2025-02-18 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | The White House issues Executive Order 14215 titled “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies,” declaring that all executive power resides with the President, including independent agencies, to ensure unified execution of federal law. The order also declares that the “President and the Attorney General shall provide authoritative interpretations of the law for the executive branch.” | EO 14215 significantly expands presidential oversight of independent agencies by requiring all agency rulemaking be preapproved by the president and that the legal positions offered by any executive department on behalf of the United States be consistent with the legal position held by the president or, by delegation, the attorney general. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
| 2025-02-14 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson bars agency political appointees from holding American Bar Association (ABA) leadership roles, attending ABA events, or renewing ABA memberships, writing that the organization “advances radical left‑wing causes and promotes the business interests of Big Tech.” | The ABA has long served as a major convening body for the legal profession, with senior administration officials routinely attending in its events. Analysts note that restricting employees’ participation in a mainstream professional body could limit engagement with peer regulators and outside experts, and may chill interaction with organizations critical of administration policies | Federal Trade Commission (FTC) |
| 2025-02-11 | Enforcement Priorities | David Hubbert, the head of the DOJ’s Tax Division, resigns rather than accept an involuntary transfer to the Trump administration’s new Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group. | The DOJ Tax Division works closely with the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) division, the enforcement arm of the IRS. IRS-CI investigates and sends prosecution referrals to the Tax Division when there is a tax matter involved. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-02-11 | Oversight and Watchdog Functions | President Trump fires USAID Inspector General Paul Martin. The removal proceeds without the 30 days’ advance notice to Congress and written explanation typically required by law. | The day before Martin was fired his office issued an advisory notice warning that the administration's sweeping aid freeze had jeopardized oversight of $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian funds and put $489 million in food assistance at risk of spoilage. | U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) |
| 2025-02-10 | Enforcement Priorities | The White House issues Executive Order 14209, pausing all Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement, which is the law that prohibits bribery to foreign officials. The E.O. (1) halts new FCPA cases for 180 days (unless authorized by the Attorney General), (2) directs the Attorney General to review all ongoing FCPA cases, and (3) requires the DOJ to issue updated enforcement guidelines. | The order states that FCPA enforcement has become overly expansive and may hurt U.S. foreign policy and economic interests. It authorizes a six-month pause in new cases, subject to special approval. Within 180 days, the DOJ must also finalize and publish new FCPA guidelines that narrow enforcement to “serious misconduct” affecting U.S. national security or harming U.S. companies, while de-emphasizing routine business practices or low‑value conduct. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-02-10 | Oversight and Watchdog | President Trump removes David Huitema as the Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), reverting to an acting Director. Huitema was appointed by President Biden, confirmed by the Senate in November 2024, and sworn in on December 16, 2024, for a five-year term. | Established in 1978, the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) leads ethics programs across more than 140 executive-branch agencies, overseeing financial disclosures, ethics training, and rules to prevent conflicts of interest. Part of its mission is to prevent financial conflicts of interest for government officials and ensure the federal government’s actions and decisions are not unduly influenced by personal financial interests. | Office of Government Ethics (OGE) |
| 2025-02-10 | Transparency and Public Access | Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove instructs prosecutors in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) to dismiss federal bribery charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams without prejudice “as soon as is practicable.” Multiple career prosecutors refuse to carry out the directive and later resign in protest. | Career prosecutors handling the case refused to prepare or sign the dismissal motion, stating in resignation letters that they saw no factual or legal reason for the DOJ to move to dismiss this case. On Apr. 2, Judge Ho (S.D.N.Y.) granted DOJ’s request but dismissed the case with prejudice, writing that permitting a future refiling could leave the mayor “more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents.” Former federal prosecutors note that overriding line prosecutors and prompting mass resignations is highly unusual and may chill future public-corruption investigations involving politically sensitive defendants. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-02-09 | Enforcement Priorities | DOJ reportedly weakened long-standing guardrails limiting White House contact with federal prosecutors. | The Justice Department has reportedly rescinded or revised prior guidance that restricted communications between the White House and DOJ officials, particularly concerning pending criminal cases. The changes reportedly ease the “no contact” rules that were designed to insulate law enforcement decisions from political influence. Under prior policy—reaffirmed in a July 2021 memo by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland—such communications were strictly limited to prevent improper interference in prosecutorial matters. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-02-08 | Enforcement Priorities | CFPB leadership unveils a reduction‑in‑force plan to eliminate roughly 1,400 of the agency’s 1,600 positions (over 90 percent of its staff) and instructs the Federal Reserve to halt the Bureau’s quarterly funding. Two days later, reporters speaking with President Trump ask him to confirm that “his goal was to have [the CFPB] totally eliminated.” President Trump replies, “I would say, yeah, because we’re trying to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.” | The CFPB was created by Congress in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to investigate banking fraud and oversee consumer financial services. In 2024, it expanded its supervisory authority to include technology companies offering digital payment platforms, like Apple Pay, Venmo, and PayPal. Advocates say that “with each day that the agency remains shut down, the financial institutions that seek to prey on consumers are emboldened—harming their law-abiding competitors and the consumers who fall victim to them.” | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) |
| 2025-02-07 | Oversight and Watchdog | President Trump terminates Hampton Dellinger, Head of the Office of Special Counsel. | The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency. Its authority comes from four statutes: the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act (which restricts partisan political activity by federal employees), and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). OSC’s primary mission is to safeguard the federal merit system by protecting employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices, including coercing political activity, nepotism, and retaliation for whistleblowing. It also serves as a secure channel for employees to report government wrongdoing and enforces employment protections for military service members under USERRA. | U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) |
| 2025-02-05 | Enforcement Priorities | The Department of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative have reportedly been granting tariff waivers to select companies and industries, raising concerns about preferential treatment. | Recent reporting suggests the tariff exemption process may advantage politically connected firms, functioning in effect as a spoils system. Prior studies of similar processes during the first Trump administration found that corporations with political ties were more likely to secure exemptions. | Department of Commerce (DOC) |
| 2025-02-05 | Enforcement Priorities | Attorney General Pam Bondi ends the DOJ's Task Force KleptoCapture, Kleptocracy Team, and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiatives. Attorneys staffed on these teams are told to “return to their prior posts, and resources currently devoted to those efforts shall be committed to the total elimination of Cartels and [transnational criminal organizations].” | These teams were created to protect the U.S. financial system from being used to launder the proceeds of corruption, investigate foreign corruption, and recover stolen assets. Recent cases include a criminal case against the president of a Russian state-owned bank accused of violating U.S. sanctions and a case involving a Russian oligarch accused of laundering money. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-02-05 | Enforcement Priorities | Attorney General Pam Bondi limits the types of criminal cases DOJ can bring under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to cases similar to “more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.” She also directs the FARA Unit to focus on civil enforcement, regulatory initiatives, and public guidance. | DOJ uses FARA to bring cases against individuals who act on behalf of foreign governments or political interests without properly disclosing their activities. These cases include unregistered lobbying, influence campaigns, or covert public relations work. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-02-05 | Enforcement Priorities | Attorney General Bondi disbands the National Security Corporate Enforcement Unit. Bondi's memo directs staff from the unit to return to their prior assignments and reallocates DOJ's focus toward other priorities like transnational criminal organizations and terrorism-related offenses. | The National Security Corporate Enforcement Unit was in charge of investigating and prosecuting companies and individuals for economic crimes tied to national security, such as evading sanctions and violating export controls. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-02-05 | Enforcement Priorities | The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reportedly shrinking the size of its cryptocurrency enforcement unit and re-assigning some of its 50-person staff. | The SEC's cryptocurrency enforcement unit was created during the first Trump administration and then grew under the Biden administration. It is responsible for bringing enforcement actions against fraudulent or unregistered crypto-asset offerings and platforms. Between its founding and December 2024, the unit brought over 200 crypto-related enforcement actions focusing on fraud and unregistered securities. The unit’s work was more than half of the SEC's total recovered penalties in 2024 (including $4.5 billion from the Terraform Labs and Kwon case). | Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) |
| 2025-02-05 | Enforcement Priorities | Attorney General Pam Bondi shuts down the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit created to investigate foreign meddling in U.S. elections and democracy. The task force was set up in 2017 to track and stop new forms of foreign interference. Bondi says the closure will help redirect resources to “more pressing priorities” and prevent what she calls misuse of prosecutorial power. | The Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) was a special FBI unit made up of experts from multiple divisions, including counterintelligence and cybercrime. Its job was to detect and stop foreign efforts to interfere in U.S. democracy, particularly elections. The team worked closely with other U.S. intelligence agencies and international partners as part of a broader government effort to respond to these threats. | Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) |
| 2025-02-05 | Enforcement Priorities | Attorney General Pam Bondi directs the DOJ’s Criminal Division to “review and reassess” the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and to focus FCPA investigation on transnational organized crime and cartels. | The FCPA criminalizes bribery of foreign officials. With the new guidance, DOJ prosecutors are instructed to prioritize FCPA investigations involving bribes tied to organized crime and drug cartels, while deprioritizing cases that do not involve such threats. Historically, DOJ has relied on other laws to prosecute transnational organized crime and cartels. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-02-03 | Oversight and Watchdog | U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—also now acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)—reportedly halts pending activities at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), including investigations, rulemaking, litigation and public communications. | The CFPB was created by Congress in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to investigate banking fraud and oversee consumer financial services. In 2024, it expanded its supervisory authority to include technology companies offering digital payment platforms, like Apple Pay, Venmo, and PayPal. | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) |
| 2025-01-31 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump fires Gwynne A. Wilcox, Chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). | The NLRB was established in 1935 and serves to safeguard employee rights, governs labor unions, and acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by the private sector. This is the first time an NLRB member has been removed since the agency was created in 1935. | National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) |
| 2025-01-27 | Independent Agencies and Non-Government Entities | President Trump fires two sitting members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), leaving the five-member oversight body without the three-member quorum it needs to issue reports, subpoena executive-branch agencies, or formally review surveillance programs. | PCLOB’s primary mission is to oversee intelligence and counter-terrorism surveillance for legality, necessity, and civil-liberties compliance. Although its focus is broader than corruption‐specific misconduct, the board forms part of the government’s wider integrity architecture. It operates as an internal check that executive-branch powers are exercised within the rule of law and not repurposed for improper ends. Loss of quorum effectively suspends that oversight. | Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) |
| 2025-01-27 | Transparency and Public Access | The head of DOJ’s Public Integrity Unit resigns rather than accept a transfer to the Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group. | The DOJ Public Integrity Section is responsible for sensitive criminal probes and prosecutions of elected officials and judges for bribery and other misconduct. The head of the section, Corey Amudson, was in a career position and had been appointed by Attorney General William Barr during the first Trump administration. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-01-27 | Oversight and Watchdog | DOJ’s senior-most career official, and the senior official designated to make ethics determinations for the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, Associate Deputy Attorney General Brad Weinsheimer, is informed of his reassignment from his position to the Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group. Weinsheimer eventually accepts deferred resignation. | Weinsheimer, a 33-year career DOJ official, held decision-making authority over referrals from the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), inspector general requests for grand jury material, and disclosures to Congress—including privilege assertions and responses to subpoenas. This portfolio is later reassigned to two other career employees. Weinsheimer was initially appointed to his role on an interim basis by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and later made permanent by Attorney General Bill Barr. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-01-25 | Oversight and Watchdog | The Trump administration removes roughly 18 inspectors general (IGs) across the federal government, including those at the Departments of Defense, State, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Intelligence Community. The removals proceed without the 30 days’ advance notice to Congress and written explanation typically required by law. | Inspectors General (IGs) are independent watchdogs within federal agencies responsible for detecting and preventing waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct. Established under the Inspector General Act of 1978 (IG Act), their role is to conduct audits and investigations and keep both agency leadership and Congress informed of significant problems. | Multiple Agencies |
| 2025-01-25 | Oversight and Watchdog | The Trump administration fires Mike Ware from his position as Chair of Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). | The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) is an independent entity established by the Inspector General Act of 1978, tasked with promoting integrity, economy, and effectiveness across federal agencies through coordinated oversight and support of the Inspector General (IG) community. CIGIE is composed of all federal IGs and is responsible for addressing issues of waste, fraud, and abuse in government programs. | Council of Inspectors General (CIGIE) |
| 2025-01-21 | Oversight and Watchdog | President Trump fires or reassigns senior career employees in the DOJ’s National Security Division, Criminal Division, and Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys. | These career positions generally do not change with changes in administration and are designed to be insulated from political pressure. Those moved include the Deputy Assistant Attorney General responsible for combatting foreign interference and the longtime Deputy Assistant Attorney General who oversaw extradition and mutual‑legal‑assistance regarding all cross‑border crimes, including corruption, and who also was responsible for the Department’s internal rule of law programs. | Department of Justice (DOJ) |
| 2025-01-20 | Federal Workforce | President Trump signs Executive Order 14171, “Restoring Accountability to Policy‑Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce.” This order directs OPM to implement rulemaking to reclassify thousands of policy‑facing federal employees as at-will employees. | The order attempts to restrict the number of professional career civil servants that the government hires based on merit as opposed to political allegiance across the federal government. This sets the stage for sweeping changes to the federal government’s professional civil service and threatens to roll back protections designed to insulate career federal workers from corruption. | Executive Office of the President (EOP) |
FEATURED IMAGE: The Washington Monument reflects in the Capitol Reflecting Pool at sunset on a warm evening on June 2, 2025 in Washington, DC.(Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
