An invitation to corruption

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/11/trump-corruption-fcpa-adams-blagojevich/

On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to pause enforcement of the federal law that makes it a crime for U.S. businesses to bribe foreign officials. The same day, he issued a full pardon to former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich for trying to sell a U.S. Senate appointment, and the Justice Department ordered that public corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams be dropped. Taken together, these moves signal the new administration’s intention to tolerate corruption — at least by the president’s allies.

Most seismic of all, however, is Trump’s order that Attorney General Pam Bondi stop bringing prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act until she formulates new enforcement guidelines. This post-Watergate reform measure has been called the “crown jewel” in America’s fight against global corruption, but Trump has long criticized it. In his first term, he mused about repealing the law, but then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — who had been chief executive of ExxonMobil — voiced his opposition.