Watchdogs to Corporate CEOs: “Don’t Hire Top Trump Officials Involved in Worst Abuses”

As Senior Trump Administration Officials Seek Refuge in Corporate America, New Campaign Warns Rewarding the Architects of Cruel and Anti-Democratic Policies with Jobs is Being Complicit in Them

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, nonpartisan government watchdogs Accountable.US and American Oversight launched the Campaign Against Corporate Complicity, which seeks to prevent the normalization of the Trump administration’s practices of undermining democracy and spreading hate and to ensure that companies fully vet any outgoing Trump administration officials who come looking for jobs by selling their government experience as a qualification rather than a disgrace. Top Trump officials should not be able to land well-paid consultancy gigs, executive and leadership positions, book deals, and speaking engagements without being fully vetted to determine whether — and to what extent — they participated in enabling, crafting, implementing, or defending the administration’s cruel, undemocratic, and dangerous policies and rhetoric. 

The campaign kicked off today with a direct appeal to CEOs to not welcome high-ranking Trump administration officials into their boardrooms or corner offices. 

“The people who companies hire reflect their corporate values. If companies hire senior level officials that engaged in Trump’s attempts to undermine and violate the rule of law, they are complicit in the cruel, undemocratic, and dangerous policies and rhetoric of his administration,” said Accountable.US President Kyle Herrig. “Corporations are America’s first line of defense against normalizing hate and misconduct, and we’ll be watching to see whether they choose to be complicit.” 

“Over the course of four years, Donald Trump amassed a record of cruelty, ineptitude, and unprecedented harm to public health and national security, but he did not do it alone,” said Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight. “Trump’s abuses were aided and implemented by scores of individuals who leave behind them a paper trail of complicity. The scramble to cancel political donations in the wake of January 6 shows corporate America clearly recognizes that values statements are meaningless without action. As the architects of family separation and Trump’s assault on our democracy go looking to reinvent their resumes, America’s business leaders must live up to their values.” 

The campaign will target CEOs of major companies, media organizations, publishing houses, and public speaking firms to avoid normalizing the harmful policies that senior-level Trump administration officials helped implement — including many policies that these CEOs spoke out against.   

More details on the campaign are available here.

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