Trump’s Power Grab: Dismantling Oversight, Enriching Billionaires, and Leaving Working Families Behind

To: Interested Parties
From: Tony Carrk, Executive Director, Accountable.US
Date: February 13, 2025

Since taking office last month, Donald Trump’s administration has used chaos theory as a weapon to gut checks and balances inherent to American democracy, and taken actions to remove oversight and anti-corruption guardrails, essentially putting a “for sale” sign on the federal government for big corporations and his billionaire donor friends to try to curry favor. At the same time, this administration has taken no action to lower costs for working families, instead inching toward a trade war that would drive up everyday costs for Americans while eyeing funding cuts that would threaten Americans’ health care and access to quality public education. He is spending time making it easier to pad his own pockets, not putting money back into yours.   

Experts who have served in Republican and Democratic administrations alike are sounding the alarm on Donald Trump’s “programmatic sabotage and rampant lawlessness” as he and his administration “are ignoring both federal law and the […] clear limitation of presidential power” in the Constitution. Put simply by President Obama’s ethics czar: Trump is “violating the law right and left.” President George W. Bush’s ethics chief has called Trump’s executive power grab: “completely unprecedented.”

Donald Trump promised to be a dictator on day one, and already his very first actions in office have been to remove guardrails against corruption and sidestep constitutionally required checks and balances. Trump has been laser-focused on bolstering his own bottom line and those of his wealthy corporate friends – and working families will be left to pick up the tab. Let’s review Trump’s latest dangerous actions: 

REMOVING OVERSIGHT TO ALLOW BILLIONAIRE DONORS TO INFLUENCE THE GOVERNMENT UNHINDERED

Donald Trump talks a big game about draining the swamp, but his first weeks in office have demonstrated anything but. Instead, he’s taken a sledgehammer to positions and processes created to hold the government’s feet to the fire and prevent conflicts of interest. These actions will give Trump and his administration unchecked power to use the government to benefit themselves and harm everyday Americans – even if it breaks the law.   

• Trump removed the director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), which is responsible for preventing conflicts of interest in the federal government and ensures officials “‘loyally adhere to the Constitution.’” Trump then installed MAGA loyalist and former Republican Congressman Doug Collins in the traditionally non-partisan role. The Office of Government Ethics is responsible for overseeing conflicts of interest – which include the numerous business contracts and regulatory matters top Trump officials, including Elon Musk, have before the government.

• Trump fired 17 inspectors general in a “sweeping action to remove oversight of his new administration.” Inspectors general were created to be an independent check at federal agencies and root out abuses of power.
• Trump signed an executive order to pause Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prosecutions of Americans accused of bribing foreign officials—a transparency watchdog warned the directive undermined “‘the crown jewel in the U.S.’s fight against global corruption.’” Trump’s wealthy inner circle has a number of financial entanglements with foreign investors. 

AMERICAN FAMILIES PAY THE PRICE OF GUTTING CHECKS AND BALANCES

Our nation’s founders created the executive branch as a co-equal branch of the federal government alongside the legislature and the judiciary. But you’d never know it based on Trump’s latest actions, which undermine and ignore Congress and the Courts – and leave the American people holding the bag while Trump and his billionaire donors score big. While this may seem like an academic exercise on constitutional laws, these actions have real consequences for people. As a result of Trump’s power grab, people have been denied essential services they rely on, like child care through Head Start; Americans’ personal financial data has been compromised and turned over to the world’s wealthiest man by the Treasury Department; there are cuts to child cancer research; and big corporations can prey on vulnerable populations and more easily rip them off because the administration gut the cop on the beat, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB): 

• A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration “violated a court order” by refusing to reverse a freeze of government funding for health care, child care, pensions and workers’ benefits, and food assistance. Denying families across the country without access to services and benefits, in a move the judge said was “likely unconstitutional.”

• Trump’s billionaire backer Elon Musk has been “rampaging through the federal bureaucracy”—including seizing the Treasury Department’s highly-sensitive payments system with access to Americans’ personal data and meddling with Congressionally mandated federal funding. There is no evidence that Musk is being held accountable for conflicts related to his vast business interests, which benefit from nearly 100 federal contracts across 17 federal agencies – meanwhile, he’s received unfettered access to Americans’ financial information.
• Trump and his appointees have fired federal employees “in naked defiance” of congressionally passed laws to protect federal officials who lead key agencies. This includes effectively shutting down major agencies – including the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board – that protect the rights of workers and combat unfair and illegal labor practices by corporations.
• Trump is shuttering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the consumer watchdog agency established by Congress, which is responsible for holding corporations accountable when they swindle vulnerable Americans. The CFPB has put more than $21 billion back into the pockets of Americans, by forcing corporations to own up to predatory and illegal practices.
   
• Trump effectively dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and “crippled” the agency by freezing congressionally-appropriated foreign aid, which is critical to countering the influence of foreign adversaries like China, in possible violation of the Watergate-era Impoundment Control Act.

• Trump has “sidelined” the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which is required to review the legality of executive orders. Instead, Trump’s team has turned to “handpicked lawyers” and political allies from outside the Justice Department.

The bottom line: Donald Trump’s playbook is clear. He will continue to gut checks and balances and safeguards to fight government corruption – all to enrich himself and his billionaire backers. America’s working families are already paying the price as they face higher costs on everyday costs from groceries to housing, while Republicans put essential services and benefits on the chopping block.

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