Peter Schweizer - Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite

T his book, like many of the others I have written over the course of the past couple of decades, proved to be research intensive. I am blessed to have a great team of researchers who scour the planet for documents, financial records, and corporate materials. And a team of fact-checkers to make sure that our sources are top-notch and being accurately reported. In particular, I want to thank Steve Stewart, Tarik Noriega, Christina Armes, Joe Duffus, Jedd McFatter, Seamus Bruner, Caleb Stephens, Hannah Cooperman, and Brian Baugus for all their hard work. I also wish to thank all those members of the research team who wish to remain anonymous.

Special thanks are also due to Vermont attorney Brady Toensing, who shared his research on Bernie Sanders, and to Dave Bossie, of Citizens United, who shared emails he obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

I am also grateful for the leadership team that works with me at the Government Accountability Institute. Our board of directors, including chairman Rebekah Mercer and member Ron Robinson, provides courageous and wise leadership as we navigate the treacherous waters of investigating and exposing corruption involving powerful people. We are also blessed to have senior leadership staff, including Stuart Christmas, Eric Eggers, Steve Post, and Sandy Schulz. Thanks also to Sally Jo Roorda, my longtime assistant, for keeping me organized.

My agents Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu of Writers Reps always steer me right, and I am grateful for their diligence on my behalf. This is my second book with Eric Nelson as my editor. He has a wonderful combination of both patience and commitment to excellence that makes him a delight to work with. Thanks also go to Hannah Long for her assistance. And Tina Andreadis of the Harper publicity team is quite simply the best in the business.

Finally, thanks and gratitude go to my family. This book is dedicated to my mother, Kerstin Schweizer, who since my earliest days encouraged me in my endeavors. My wife, Rhonda, has been loving and encouraging throughout this busy and difficult time. Joe, Maria, Dan, Adam, Raquel, and Avathanks for joining me on this wild ride. Its my hope that by fighting corruption we can make the world a better place for everyone, especially for my children, Jack and Hannah.

The author alone is responsible for the contents of this book.

Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich

Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets

Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison

Architects of Ruin: How Big Government Liberals Wrecked the Global Economyand How They Will Do It Again If No One Stops Them

Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement (with Wynton Hall)

The Reagan Presidency: Assessing the Man and His Legacy (with Paul Kengor)

Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty (with Rochelle Schweizer)

Reagans War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph over Communism

Disney: The Mouse Betrayed (with Rochelle Schweizer)

Victory: The Reagan Administrations Secret Strategy that Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union

PETER SCHWEIZER is the president of the Government Accountability Institute and the former William J. Casey Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a number one New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into eleven languages.

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I t is often the small acts of corruption that herald the giant ones to follow.

Taken on their own, Bill and Hillary Clintons little corruptions while he was Arkansas attorney general and governor might have seemed like no big deal. Hillary got favorable treatment from commodity traders and she made almost $100,000 trading cattle futures. Yet, now we can see how these small liberties fit a pattern of using public power for personal gain, the scope of which has been limited only by the influence of the public office they held.

By the time they achieved national power in Washington, the size and scope of their corruptions began to snowball. In the waning days of his White House tenure, Bill Clinton infamously pardoned billionaire fugitive Marc Rich, who had donated to his campaign.

Then of course, there was the moving of her entire email communication system onto a private server to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other federal laws.

As the old saying goes, if you cannot trust someone with a little power, you had better not trust them with a lot. With the Clintons, there were early warning signs that often went unheeded. Today the Clintons are part of American political history, but others are emerging to take their place in the progressive pantheon with their own nascent models of corruption. The challenge now is bringing the latest warning signs to lightand taking them seriously.

Arguably the greatest American political novel, Robert Penn Warrens All the Kings Men is set in the Depression-era Deep South. It tells the story of Jack Burden, the scion of a wealthy and influential family with a penchant for history, who becomes the right-hand man to Governor Willie Stark, a charismatic populist. Stark grew up hardscrabble poor and rides into office promising to be a reformer who will make everything right.

But hes also a corrupt blackmailer who leverages his power for his own personal ends.

Burden refers to Stark as the Boss, an allusion to the fact that Stark has built his political empire through cronyism, corruption, patronage, and intimidation. The Boss wants Burden to investigate one of his fiercest critics, Judge Irwin. The Boss wants dirt on the judge, and he expects Burden to make it stick. The problem: venerable Judge Irwin is a father figure to Burden; they were very close during his childhood, and Burden is confident that there is no dirt to be found. The Boss disagrees: Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption, and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. Theres always something .

Burden does what Stark asks and starts to dig into Judge Irwins finances. Much to his profound disappointment, he discovers that the Boss is correct: his old family friend is corrupt. He took a bribe. Burden also learns that Judge Irwin is actually his father.