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The Progressive

NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Phone: (202) 588-1000

Trump's Tough-On-Crime DOJ Will Let Corporate Bribery Slide

Statement of Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen

WASHINGTON

Tough guy Attorney General Jeff Sessions is eager to throw the book at low-level, nonviolent offenders, but is ready to offer kid-glove bear hugs to corporate criminals.

Overseas bribery exacts a horrible toll on real people. It fosters corruption of governmental agencies, often in newly evolving democracies, and drains public treasuries at the expense of investment in health, education and other public priorities. Letting corporations off the hook for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will foster more bribery, more corruption and more stripping of resources from poor countries.

This move by the U.S. Department of Justice is yet another refutation of the Trump administration's law-and-order pretensions, highlighting again both the ugly racial underpinnings of Sessions' instruction for the harshest sentencing of low-level offenders and its tolerance for corporate crime and wrongdoing.

Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.

(202) 588-1000