Fifteen years ago, the Supreme Court ruled on the landmark case Citizens United which opened the floodgates for obscene amounts of wealth to enter into political campaigns. Since then, the role of dark money groups, super PACs, and other forms of corruption have only intensified, most evidently in the 2024 election.
Now, Jen is joined by Michael Beckel to discuss how Trump has taken advantage of this system as well as his many other forms of corruption he and his family have been involved in. The pair also touch on the weakening of America’s campaign finance laws, Trump’s cryptocurrency enterprise, and how corruption in government leads to the erosion of trust in the public.
Read the mentioned David Kirkpatrick story How Much is Trump Profiting off the Presidency? in The New Yorker here.
Michael Beckel is the Senior Research Director at Issue One. He is a nationally recognized expert on money in politics and election administration issues. Beckel has been following money in politics for more than 15 years, including attending the oral arguments of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark campaign finance case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ushered in a new era of big money in politics. His expertise is regularly cited by media outlets, and for more than a decade, he has trained journalists on how to follow political money and uncover donors to secretive political dark money groups.
