Following a bribery and corruption scandal, U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle has resigned her position. Her resignation highlights yet another example of Trump Administration officials using their offices to personally enrich themselves.
Guilfoyle’s request for $100,00 in credit card bills, Don Jr.’s Russian oligarch-funded wedding, and Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff’s personal business deals made while traveling in their official capacity expose the need to enact strong consequences for corruption in the federal government.
Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) joins Jen to discuss a series of anti-corruption legislation he introduced in the Senate. They explore how corruption is not a victimless crime and point out that the American people pay a “corruption tax” every time Trump and co. profit from illicit financial agreements.
Senator Andy Kim is a Democratic Senator from New Jersey. He previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2019 to 2024.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian. I am delighted to have with us Senator Andy Kim from my home state of New Jersey. Welcome, Senator.
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, thanks for having me back on.
Jen Rubin
It is great to have you back. Great to see you. You have introduced several measures dealing with corruption. First of all, take a step back and tell us how big the problem is, and then tell us a little bit about some of the measures you’ve introduced.
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, well, you know, when you think about the problem of corruption, I mean, I think there’s two angles of it. One is just how widespread, you know, is the problem of elected officials engaged in various corruption. I mean, I think we see with the Trump administration a level of industrial corruption unlike anything that we’ve seen before, and I think that this is our political system is going to be reeling for years. dealing with the aftermath of what Trump has set forward. The other aspect of this, in terms of the problem, is just how much the American people distrust government and politics because of corruption. And that’s, you know, in many ways, an equally, if not more devastating element of this, because And what good is democracy if people don’t believe in the system, if people think that politics is some exclusive club for the well-off and the well-connected and they don’t feel like they are able to participate as a citizen? So those are really the two things I’m trying to marry up here is both have accountability and oversight for wrongdoings, whether by the Trump administration or by anyone. Somebody that stood up against corruption in New Jersey when it was a Democratic senator and a Democratic political machine here. We need to call it out. Otherwise, if you don’t call it out across the board, then the American people see it as just opportunism. You’re only calling it out when it’s someone from the other party, but you’re not holding your own to account. So that’s really where I’m trying to operate within.
Jen Rubin
And your lieutenant governor, for example, was forced to resign. Your governor stepped forward, you and others stepped forward to police your own side, because that is so important. Unfortunately. Not everyone polices themselves. Talk to us a little bit about some of the measures you’ve introduced to try to get at this systemic problem.
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, so here’s what I’ll say is like we want accountability, we want oversight. But I’ll be honest with you, the Supreme Court has made this very difficult by a couple of decision points that I’ve seen how it’s impacted, you know, the cases against, again, Senator Menendez and others. So, you know, I’ll give you a couple examples here, is that, you know, the Supreme Court made a ruling about the previous governor of Virginia, McDonnell. About whether or not some of the actions that he was taking constitute bribery, constitute corruption. And they said, well, you know, when it comes to these official acts, it’s hard to kind of determine what is being done, and whether or not there’s some malfeasance there. So there, the Supreme Court weakened, you know, a provision of fighting corruption that’s made it really hard for prosecutors and others to follow up and be able to engage. There’s another case, Snyder, where, you know, there was a situation where, you know, this mayor helped somebody get contracts. And then after the fact, received, like, a gratuity, like, received a tip. And, you know, the Supreme Court basically ruling, oh, well, it happened after the fact, and therefore it’s not considered bribery because, you know, it’s not like he got the money or the gratuity ahead of time. So these two really constitute a real weakening of our efforts to fight corruption. So, you know, when I’ve talked to you about this on these shows before, I told you, like, we need to fight not just in terms of talking points and calling out, but to actually set up structures, to actually close off these loopholes that are being used by Trump and others. So, when it comes to the Supreme Court. These arguments that they’re making, they’re not constitutional arguments, these are not…arguments where they’re saying the Constitution doesn’t allow for this type of anti-corruption action. They made a statutory argument, saying the statute is written in such a way where there’s vagary there. So, as a result, I decided to try to fix that. by statute. As a lawmaker, I’m one of 535 people in this country that can introduce legislation to change these statutes, and that’s what I’ve done, is I studied with a lot of legal experts. people who’ve experienced fighting in court against political corruption, on coming up with a fix to the McConnell case, as well as to the Snyder incident, as well as another one to create more action for the American people, a private right of action for them to step up and fight corruption. But, you know, this is something that, again, I hope that people take seriously, because, like, these are real fixes that could close off and really significantly hamper the ability for people to dodge accountability. This is exactly the type of thinking we need. When we come back into power, we can’t just be, again. pointing out and shining a light on the malfeasance of Trump. If we don’t take action as well to close that off for future, for future problems down the road. I think we would be doing our democracy a huge disservice if we allow this moment of rampant corruption to pass without real Fixes in our… in our laws, in our statutes, in our proceedings that are actually going to meaningfully try to stop this from happening again.
Jen Rubin
In the McDonald case, the court held, well, if you’re just making a call to set up a meeting or kind of ringing up somebody, nudging someone, maybe that’s not an official act. Talk to us about what your statutory change would do so that you can’t pay people to put in a good word and put their finger on the scale.
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, so basically, you know, in the… in the… the court case, they talked about, like, official acts, like, what constitutes an official act of an elected official, like, you know, setting up meetings or phone calls, this or that. Where I come at it from is from a different direction. I say it’s not about defining official acts, it’s about defining what I call corrupt access. And identifying that even if I’m not making a decision, like, a part of the case was, well, Governor McDonald didn’t make some firm decision, you know, giving that person the money or the contracts or something of that nature. No, even just the access, you know, even just the access that elected officials and government officials have. causes problems. So even if I’m not making a decision that inherently just steers money towards somebody, my ability to have access and influence in that broader process, especially if you’re a governor, for instance. You know, that matters. And so that’s what we’re trying to define. We’re trying to define the wrongdoing of what we call corrupt access. And we think that that can really hold, you know, a lot of account here while trying to not fall into the trap of just what constitutes corrupt acts, constitutes official acts. I’ll just say this one point, though. Is that as someone who’s been an elected official for what, eight years or so in the House and the Senate, I just wanna say it’s not hard to steer away from corruption. Like the way that it’s sort of meant out in the Supreme Court, it makes it sound like every day I’m doing things that are skirting the line and like that politicians, we just live in the gray zone and therefore we can create some greater clarity. That’s not true. Like, I’d never feel like I’ve been in a place where I am like skirting the line. If there are things you’re doing where you’re skirting the line, you probably need to raise the line so that you’re not even getting close to that.
Jen Rubin
Right?
Senator Andy Kim
And like, you know, I just, I just think that like we’re just kind of assuming and that the Supreme Court was just trying to make it seem like this is just an inevitability of politics that you’d have these types of conflicts of interest. And I just wanna just kind of declaratively say like, not true. And that we just need to raise the bar and not have people who are just kind of living in that gray zone of crime.
Jen Rubin
Such an important part. If you are taking money from people, you shouldn’t be doing things for them. Put it that way. Yeah. Talk to us about the private right of action. I think this is so critical, not only in this realm, but in other realms like civil rights violations. The Supreme Court has made it very hard sometimes to find an appropriate person to sue or to bring a legal action. Talk to us about what a private right of action does, and how this makes, really, politicians responsible to the voters.
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, look, when it comes to harm, like, who is being harmed by… by, by political corruption. You’re right, like, oftentimes it’s like, well, like, you know. who is… who’s been… who has standing, who has the reason to be able to argue that they’ve been harmed. I say the people do. Like, the people who elected these officials, or who are represented by them one way or another in the executive branch, or the legislature, or others, like… Like these are people who are working on our behalf. They’re being paid by taxpayer dollars and their wrongdoings. are not just in a vacuum, it undermines our government. It undermines the credibility of our institutions, which as a result harms your average American. So, you know, what I tried to put forward is legislation that would give the people a right of private action to be able to file suit against leaders, government officials. that are engaged in quid pro quo, engaged in corruption, and that would, you know, in many ways, just hopefully Create an even stronger sense that accountability can matter, because you see it right now, like, you see how Trump very much feels above the law. He feels above the law because he controls the Department of Justice. He has installed his own personal attorney to be the Attorney General of the United States. And as a result, you know, like there’s really no means by which to be able to get towards him. Other like others in politics, like in government, they just don’t feel consequences. And as a result, you know, it breeds this kind of culture of permissiveness when it comes to corruption. I mean, I’ll talk about, you know, in New Jersey, I’ve talked about how there’s a machine politics here that has often created this kind of aura that people in politics are not beholden to the people. Instead, they’re beholden to machine bosses and party bosses and those. As a result, you know, we’ve developed an unfortunate Sort of culture of… political patronage and corruption here in New Jersey that I’m fighting against. So, I just… more transparency, more accountability, and more Agency from people, I think is the right direction to go rather than what we’re seeing now, which is a narrowing of the tools to fight corruption.
Jen Rubin
Exactly.
Senator Andy Kim
To the point where we’ve basically neutered the ability of the executive branch to do anything against people in the executive branch, especially, you know, the leadership and the president. And that’s just the wrong thing. We can’t just have a situation where it’s only congressional oversight. that has some means of being able to shine a light, and even when they want to file contempt of Congress or something, you know, they are, again, very much handcuffed in many different ways. So, you know, that’s why I’ve been pushing for that extra tool that I think is important.
Jen Rubin
I’m talking to you on a day that the ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was finally forced to resign based upon a report in the Wall Street Journal that she was essentially strong-arming someone to pay her exorbitant American Express bill. There are probably other instances out there, and we know, for example, the president’s son had a Russian oligarch foot the bill for his wedding. Lots of payments that are going to and from people. We have… Jared Kushner. And Mr. Witkoff, who are negotiating on behalf of the government at the same time that they are striking business deals. If You will find yourself back in the majority, or even if not, what are some of the ways of beginning to exercise oversight? to get transparency, and to make sure that this ends. If you’re doing business deals for yourself with a foreign government, why are you negotiating on behalf of the United States government?
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah. Well, look, first and foremost, they constantly have to remind ourselves this is not normal, nor should it ever be normal. And, you know, again, I just worry that people see all this and they’re just like, you know, there’s nothing we can do to get this back in the box. First and foremost, yes, there needs to be, you know, this corruption needs to be exposed. Krista Braaksma And again, this is where it can’t just be like, oh, these were official acts. Like, we see that when they’re talking about, like, the ballroom, for instance, and how they’re raising money from, you know, all these different outside donors. Like, that falls into… like, that could very well fall into what I kind of lay out there, corrupt access, you know, even if it’s for some official duty, if the purpose is meant for corrupt access, then, you know, there’s a problem there. So I wanted to just give that kind of example as sort of, you know, another reasoning why I think we need to make sure there’s clarity in the statute. Yes, we want the oversight. Yes, the American people deserve to know what’s happening, because it’s not like this is happening in a bubble. Like, again. These are the reasons why the cost of the American people are going up. When Trump is striking some foreign deals, and his family is gaining money out of that, like, we’re paying for those deals. And that’s what I call a corruption tax on the American people. And the more that we think about it as coming from our pockets. you know, the more that I think people will see that this isn’t just some, like, oh, someone’s getting, you know, some extra money on the side. No, it’s hurting us. It’s hurting our country’s ability to do foreign policy, when basically our foreign policy as the United States has been extortion. That’s essentially what Trump has been doing. He’s been extorting other countries, forcing them to give him and his family money if they want to have a presidential visit, or to, you know, be able to get some sort of deal. And that is directly undermining our own national security. So, as someone who worked at the State Department, worked in multiple embassies, I’ve worked under multiple ambassadors. What I read about was disgusting. And even if she’s resigning, she should still be held accountable.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Senator Andy Kim
We need to have clarity on what else happened. This can’t be a situation where the White House is like, okay, we’re moving on. Nothing to see there. This is where we need to make sure we’re having the type of congressional oversight and other types of actions to engage on this. Plus, I also don’t want, Jen, I don’t want to just like play whack-a-mole. You know, I don’t want to just to, like, see what other headline’s gonna break. Like, we should do a concerted effort to engage and to ensure that integrity is being held. And if it’s not, then we take action for accountability. It’s what the American people deserve.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely, and this connection between democracy and corruption Corruption and the cost of living, very important for the American people to understand. And when you have 90%, according to the Gallup poll, of Americans who believe corruption is very widespread, we have a real problem. So thank you for everything you are doing, Senator Kim. Thank you for sharing with us. We’ll be looking forward to the hopefully successful passage of your legislation. And best of luck. I know you’re doing a lot of traveling in the next few weeks, so safe travels, and we look forward to having you back soon.
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks for shining a spotlight on the problems of corruption as always. Thank you.
Jen Rubin
Our pleasure.
