Mastodawn

Marcin Romanowski, the former deputy justice minister in the right-wing Polish government, is in hiding in Hungary, accused of misusing public funds. The former #PrinceAndrew — #AndrewMountbattenWindsor — became the first member of the British #royal family in several centuries to be arrested; he’s been accused of crimes related to his relationship with the late #SexTrafficking financier Jeffrey #Epstein.

They’re all unfortunate not to be “American”. Otherwise they probably would have gotten away scot-free.

One way to look at the rise of Donald #Trump is as part of a decades-long backlash among the American leadership class to the idea of #accountability. Since Richard #Nixon was forced to resign, powerful people in both political parties have worked assiduously to ensure that their leaders would escape the consequences of their actions.

#US #law #power #plutocracy

#Trump has evaded punishment for #crimes both low (campaign-finance violations, for which he was #convicted, though he will serve no time thanks to his 2024 victory) & high (his attempted overthrow of the federal government in the aftermath of his #2020election loss, for which he was spared by #SCOTUS’ decision to grant him a kingly #immunity).

This is not just about #Trump; his #impunity is the product of a society that has worked hard to help the #rich & #powerful elude punishment for #criminal behavior.

Gerald #Ford pardoned his predecessor [#Nixon] in the name of “healing,” but inadvertently set a precedent that executive lawbreaking was no #crime.

The #Reagan admin engaged in blatant violations of federal #law during the #IranContra scandal, in which it sold weapons to the #Iran regime & used the finances to support anti-communist death squads in #Nicaragua. George H. W. #Bush, the former head of the #CIA, pardoned nearly all of the officials implicated in Iran-Contra—a move that many Americans supported, because they believed that fighting communism justified extreme measures.

George W. #Bush’s admin broke laws fighting the “War on Terror” but almost no one faced consequences, because many Americans believed that fighting terrorism justified extreme measures.

Bill #Clinton lied under oath, was impeached, & then was acquitted—& many Americans supported that too, because they sympathized with lying about infidelity.

After that, #Congress decided in bipartisan fashion that it had had enough of special counsels sniffing around the #ExecutiveBranch. Barack #Obama pledged to look forward & not backwards, not only closing the door on prosecutions for executive lawbreaking but also failing to hold accountable those responsible for the 2008 financial crisis & the ensuing #GreatRecession.

While #Congress & the presidency have been working hard to raise the #ExecutiveBranch above the #law, #SCOTUS has done its part to ensure that laws against #bribery & #corruption are near-unenforceable. With a series of rulings on #CampaignFinance, the #JohnRoberts Court has ensured that the #rich can try to buy #elections without formally breaking the law. As a result, #politicians are #indebted to a few hundred #billionaires who drop unholy amounts of cash every #election cycle.

#US #power

Getting convicted of #bribery in the #US requires some serious effort—take fmr Democratic Sen #BobMenendez of NJ, who was convicted of selling influence on behalf of local businesses & the country of Egypt after being caught with gold bars in his house. When #Trump first took office, he paused enforcement of foreign bribery cases entirely—but there are some signs that he intends to revive such prosecutions as a #weapon against his enemies, in the mold of the Hungarian #strongman Victor #Orbán.

#US #accountability #power #plutocracy

Such erosion of anti-#corruption #law has often been a bipartisan project. In 2016, the #bribery conviction of fmr VA Gov Bob McDonnell for receiving gifts from donors was overturned unanimously by #SCOTUS. Since then, the #JohnRoberts Court has slowly dismantled anti-corruption law. In 2024, it decided in Snyder v. United States that federal law does not bar receiving “gratuities” given after the fact for “official acts.”

Convenient not just for politicians, but also for justices who enjoy lavish lifestyles funded by #billionaires with interests before #SCOTUS!

The logic of the #JohnRoberts Court’s quest to legalize white-collar #crime led to #Trump v. United States, which decided in 2024 that the president is basically entitled to commit whatever #crimes he wants in the course of his “official duties,”

#US #law #accountability #power

Which successfully shields #Trump & potentially future presidents from federal #criminal prosecution for any “official” actions while in office. This was comically framed by #SCOTUS’ right-wing justices as protecting #democracy, rather than undermining it.

Although some of these decisions were more defensible than others, together they suggest a pattern of #elite class solidarity: powerful people making sure that powerful people rarely face real consequences.

The #MeToo & Black Lives Matter [#BLM] movements can be seen as, at least partially, a brief rebellion against this culture of #elite #impunity. Left with few formal avenues for redress, large numbers of people demanded that the powerful—bosses & celebrities who had used their status to coerce others into sexual relationships, or police officers who had used their authority to kill without consequence—be made to pay a price for hurting others.

Those movements didn’t last. The backlash against them nevertheless fed a Trumpian nostalgia for the good old days, when #SexualAssault & #PoliceBrutality were easily rationalized or not even discussed. This…helps explain the extreme response to the call for #accountability — many powerful bystanders behaved as though they had narrowly survived Robespierre & the guillotine & worked to prevent such movements from ever emerging again by trying to censor #speech associated with them.

#US #law

An echo of that earlier outrage followed the revelations of the #EpsteinFiles, though this round has so far been diverted into mutual partisan recrimination, more than the focus on institutional changes that characterized those earlier movements.

This is not to say that the rich & powerful are never held to account. #BobMenendez is one counterexample, & #Epstein himself was a #billionaire who died in a jail cell, after all.

But #Epstein’s #crimes were taken seriously by authorities only after the #journalist #JulieBrown uncovered the extent of his crimes & the lenient response from law enforcement over decades.

Unfortunately, many Americans who might have been outraged at this edifice of #impunity have instead directed their resentment toward the #poor & #weak, supporting a cruel & unforgiving system of #criminal “justice” that harshly punishes those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder while exempting many at the top from any #accountability at all.

So you did a few death-squad massacres or wedding bombings? Well, that was what America’s leaders had to do to fight communism & terrorism. You can even take a sack of cash from an undercover FBI agent if you’re the #Trump #immigration czar #TomHoman. But if you overstayed your #visa or got an #abortion, you deserve to have the book thrown at you.

#Trump himself can be seen as benefiting from a backlash against #accountability in the last place powerful people in America seem to face it∶ the court of public opinion. Trump, & other powerful figures, made the public an offer∶ Let us get away with what we want to do, & you will too.

“They voted for #impunity for themselves & #authoritarian #brutality directed at everyone they hated. Lesbian feminist bitches, dirty job-stealing immigrants, evil perverted trannies, on & on & on,” Katherine Alejandra Cross writes of Trump’s implicit bargain in *Liberal Currents*. “The brutality of #StateViolence was supposed to only ever be directed at their ideological foes. And in exchange, the #Trump voter would never again have to live with the mortifying ordeal of #responsibility.”

#law

#MAGA also offered an implicit bargain∶ Not only can you be a #bigot toward whatever group makes you mad by existing, but everyone will have to love & respect you anyway. This was an impossible promise to keep—not even #Trump has managed to bully comedians mocking him into silence—but politicians make impossible promises all the time. Many Americans are simply content to live vicariously through Trump’s #impunity, even if they cannot share it.

…The answer to why powerful people in some other parts of the world face consequences, while in the #US they rarely do, is that #elite #impunity is now an American national project. We might need to reframe “American exceptionalism.” Instead of a New Deal, we have a Great Society for #WhiteCollar #crime, a New Frontier of executive lawbreaking, a No Rich Crook Left Behind. Most of us probably don’t even realize it.

Nevertheless, this has been the priority for the #wealthy & #powerful, who have managed to convince a critical mass of Americans that they will be able to enjoy the same privileges. They won’t.