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securities and exchange commission
With Dropped Enforcement, Trump Accused of 'Inviting a Corporate Crime Spree'
"President Trump talks 'tough on crime,' but his administration is once again betraying a preference for going soft on corporations that break the law."
Mar 04, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump "is handing out 'get out of jail free' cards to corporate lawbreakers," declared Rick Claypool, author of a Tuesday report about the administration ending probes and enforcement actions against dozens of companies.
Claypool is a research director for the watchdog Public Citizen. His report "covers 429 separate investigations and cases against 361 corporations over alleged lawbreaking—including at least 25 involving allegations of criminal misconduct."
During the first six weeks since the inauguration, the researcher found, the Trump administration halted or moved to dismiss actions against 89 corporations—or 25% of the companies in Public Citizen's tracker of prominent cases.
"The consequences for the public when corporations face a diminished threat of enforcement are disastrous," Claypool warned in a statement. "Meanwhile, honest businesses that are not Trump administration insiders—or that refuse to play along with the ultra-MAGA ideological agenda—may face serious disadvantages from Trump's politicized approach to enforcement."
As his report, Corporate Clemency, details, the beneficiaries of the recent dismissals are:
- All 42 corporations facing Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) cases and investigations (seven dismissals have been sought so far);
- Twenty corporations facing Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cases and investigations into possible Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations;
- Eight corporations facing DOJ Civil Rights Division cases and investigations (one dismissal, a case against Elon Musk's SpaceX, has been sought so far);
- Seven corporations facing DOJ Environment and Natural Resources Division cases and investigations;
- Seven cryptocurrency corporations facing SEC cases and investigations, five of which the Trump administration has filed to dismiss; and
- Six employers facing Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) cases for discrimination against transgender and nonbinary workers, which the Trump administration has filed to dismiss.
"Additionally, firings of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) members and EEOC commissioners mean these regulators lack the quorum needed for finalizing enforcement decisions, including NLRB cases against 100 corporations included in the tracker," the report explains. "There are nearly 27,000 open NLRB cases in total."
The corporations that began the Trump administration with the greatest number of probes or cases in the Public Citizen tracker are Musk's Tesla (eight) and SpaceX (four), billionaire Jeff Bezos' Amazon (seven), Big Pharma's Pfizer (five), banking giant Wells Fargo (four), and the insurance company UnitedHealthcare (four).
The report highlights that "of the 361 corporations facing federal enforcement actions, 56 have close ties with the Trump administration," 17 of which "are benefiting from the enforcement pauses that have halted investigations and cases."
The document also identifies 34 companies that collectively gave at least $34 million toward Trump inaugural festivities.
Amazon and Pfizer each gave $1 million, as did many others: Adobe, Apple, AT&T, Boeing, Coinbase, ExxonMobil, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Google, Hyundai and its affiliate, Johnson & Johnson, Kraken, Lockheed Martin, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Stanley Black & Decker, Stellantis, and Toyota.
Ripple, Robinhood Markets, and Uber gave even more, while Abbott Laboratories, Bank of America, Citibank, Coca-Cola, CoreCivic, Ericsson, Hewlett Packard, and Syngenta gave less or an undisclosed amount.
Apple and OpenAI's contributions came from the companies' chief executives, Tim Cook and Sam Altman, while Uber had a corporate donation and one from CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. All three of them appear on the report's list of "Big Tech oligarchs seeking corporate clemency from the Trump administration," alongside Musk, Bezos, TikTok's Shou Zi Chew, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta—which owns Instagram and Facebook—and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
"President Trump talks 'tough on crime,'" the report says, "but his administration is once again betraying a preference for going soft on corporations that break the law."
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman similarly called out not only Trump—who was convicted of 34 felonies—but also Attorney General Pam Bondi and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel, who all "bloviate about how tough they are on crime."
"The reality is the Trump administration by its actions is inviting a corporate crime spree," Weissman said in a statement. "Not only does the wholesale abandonment of cases against alleged corporate wrongdoers let bad actors off the hook, it invites—and virtually guarantees—a surge in consumer rip offs, endangerment of workers, poisoning of the air and water, discriminatory employment practices, and more."
Public Citizen's analysis comes amid mounting alarm over Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by Musk, the richest person on Earth. As Common Dreamsreported Monday, the Center for Biological Diversity noted in a new lawsuit that Trump's executive order establishing the government-gutting initiative requires all federal agencies to form DOGE teams.
The center's complaint stresses that "Mr. Musk and other billionaire and tech executives working with DOGE stand to benefit personally and financially from the DOGE teams' work, including by securing government contracts, slashing environmental rules that apply to their companies, and reducing the government's regulatory capacity and authority, including by targeting specific agencies, statutes, and spending decisions that affect their businesses."
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Crypto Giants 'Already Getting Their Payoff' as Trump SEC Drops Coinbase Lawsuit
The Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to drop its legal action against Coinbase was called "proof positive that the crypto industry's flood of campaign spending has paid off."
Feb 24, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's Securities and Exchange Commission has delivered a significant victory to the cryptocurrency industry by agreeing to drop a major lawsuit against Coinbase, a crypto exchange platform company that spent heavily on the 2024 election and donated a million dollars to President Donald Trump's inauguration.
The SEC's decision, announced Friday by Coinbase's chief legal officer, marks the latest evidence of the nascent industry's growing political influence and the current administration's readiness to ditch corporate enforcement efforts. The New York Timesnoted Friday that the SEC under the Biden administration sued Coinbase in 2023 "on the grounds that the digital currencies sold on its platform constituted unregistered securities that put consumers at risk of financial harm."
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement that "the SEC abandonment of its case against Coinbase is proof positive that the crypto industry's flood of campaign spending has paid off."
"The now-abandoned lawsuit against Coinbase involved the most basic assertion of SEC authority: Coinbase cryptocurrency offerings are actually securities and must be registered and regulated as such," said Weissman. "Retreat from this basic assertion is a massive gift to the industry, which can only be understood in light of its massive political spending in the last election."
According to the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets, Coinbase spent over $46 million trying to influence the 2024 election, part of a broader wave of spending from the cryptocurrency industry.
A trio of pro-crypto super PACs spent over $130 million in an effort to "elect a crypto-friendly president and members of Congress," OpenSecrets noted in a blog post just days before the 2024 contest.
Public Citizen argued ahead of the 2024 election that Coinbase's campaign spending appeared to be illegal because the company is a federal contractor.
BREAKING: The SEC has dropped its enforcement case against Coinbase. Coinbase spent $46 million to influence the outcome of the election. Now they're already getting their payoff.
— More Perfect Union (@moreperfectunion.bsky.social) February 21, 2025 at 9:34 AM
The SEC is currently led by Acting Chair Mark Uyeda, whom Trump appointed to the post following the resignation of former Chair Gary Gensler, a proponent of tough crypto regulation.
Following the November election, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong met privately with Trump, who has profited massively from his own foray into crypto. The two discussed personnel appointments, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Since taking office last month, Trump has moved to stock his administration with crypto enthusiasts, including some with glaring conflicts of interest.
The Coinbase CEO's sister, Kathryn Armstrong Loving, has been identified as a member of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. Coinbase, meanwhile, "brought on Trump's campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita as a member of its Global Advisory Council," Sludgereported.
Weissman of Public Citizen warned Friday that "when the crypto crash happens," the SEC's decision to drop its lawsuit against Coinbase "will go down as one that made it far worse than it would have been."
"The SEC decision is also an important marker in the Trump administration's rush to abandon prosecution and enforcement actions against corporate criminals and wrongdoers," he added. "This is not just an abandonment of those already wronged by corporate wrongdoers, it is an invitation to a corporate crime spree and epidemic of corporate wrongdoing. Americans, watch your head, watch your wallet, and watch your back."
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'Profoundly Dangerous': Trump Moves to Seize Control of Independent Agencies
"Americans should understand exactly what this is: A giant gift to the corporate class and a Trumpian power grab."
Feb 19, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at bringing the nation's independent agencies—including the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission—under his control, a sweeping power grab that's expected to spark a legal fight with enormous stakes for the country.
The new executive order, titled "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies," laments that previous administrations "have allowed so-called 'independent regulatory agencies' to operate with minimal presidential supervision" and states that, going forward, "the president and the attorney general, subject to the president's supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch."
The order goes on to require that "all executive departments and agencies"—including those granted some independence from the presidency by Congress—"shall submit for review all proposed and final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Executive Office of the President before publication in the Federal Register."
OIRA is part of the Office of Management and Budget, which is run by Project 2025 architect and far-right extremist Russell Vought.
In a fact sheet released alongside the order, the White House specifically names the FTC, the SEC, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as agencies it claims have "exercised enormous power over the American people without presidential oversight."
The new order exempts from its far-reaching mandates the "monetary policy functions of the Federal Reserve."
"Not incidentally, both the FTC and SEC have ongoing investigations or enforcement actions against companies owned by Elon Musk."
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement that the executive order marks an "illegal" attempt to "shield corporations from accountability and centralize more power with Trump and his minions."
"This is a profoundly dangerous idea for the nation's health, safety, environment, and economy—and for our democracy," he added. "Congress made independent agencies independent of the White House for good reason."
Weissman noted that the independence of agencies such as the FTC and SEC is "designed to enable them to perform these duties without undue political pressure from giant corporations, the super-rich and the super-connected."
"Trump's EO would dissolve that independence and put the agencies under Trump's thumb, ensuring they turn a blind eye to wrongdoing by favored corporations and leave consumers and investors out to dry," Weissman continued. "Not incidentally, both the FTC and SEC have ongoing investigations or enforcement actions against companies owned by Elon Musk. Americans should understand exactly what this is: A giant gift to the corporate class and a Trumpian power grab."
The Washington Postreported that Trump's order sets the stage for "a potential Supreme Court fight that could give him significantly more power over those agencies' decisions, budgets, and leadership." Trump has already trampled decades of legal precedent by firing protected officials without cause, including the former chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
"Courts have blocked or limited the reach of some of Trump's executive actions, but legal observers expect that the conservative-dominated Supreme Court may be open to broadening presidential power in at least some of the cases," the Post observed. "The justices are already considering a case regarding the scope of Trump's power over independent agencies, and Tuesday's executive order seems sure to prompt additional legal challenges."
Deborah Pearlstein, a constitutional scholar at Princeton University, told the newspaper that the White House is "deliberately teeing up a major question of constitutional law that will go to the Supreme Court for review."
The Supreme Court is currently controlled by a right-wing supermajority that includes three Trump-appointed justices.
Prior to Trump's order, the U.S. Justice Department—headed by Attorney General Pam Bondi—indicated that it would no longer defend the independence of the NLRB, FTC, and other agencies and would ask the Supreme Court to reverse precedent that has shielded independent agency leaders from termination without cause.
Reutersreported that "about two dozen companies, including Amazon and Elon Musk's SpaceX, have filed lawsuits since last year claiming the president should have the power to fire NLRB members at will."
"Several companies sued by the FTC have filed similar challenges against that agency," the outlet added. "They include Meta Platforms, Walmart, and Cigna's Express Scripts."
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