Murphy Releases New Report On Trump's Corrupt Alliance With Corporations That Break The Law To Raise Prices And Screw Over Consumers

WASHINGTON-U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) today released Corporate Pardons: The Trump Plan to Let Corporations Get Away With Crimes is Ripping Off Americans. The new report reveals how Trump is executing an autocratic, pay-to-play scheme that allows the corporations that support him to break the law, while abandoning his working-class base to face corporate scams and higher prices.

Earlier this year, Trump made history as the first president to pardon a corporation, freeing the crypto exchange BitMex from criminal accountability and a $100 million fine. However, Murphy's new report exposes that Trump has functionally issued many more pardons, through the use of executive enforcement power, usually in exchange for millions of dollars in financial contributions to Trump and his allies. As the report details, Trump's use of executive power to issue "corporate pardons" for personal gain spans a variety of federal agencies, including the DOJ, CFPB, FTC, and CBP, and includes approving blatantly unlawful mergers, dropping pending cases, and even rescinding final orders to allow corporations to avoid paying restitution to their victims.

The effects of Trump's dropped enforcement reverberate throughout the economy, primarily by harming consumers through higher prices, reduced safety standards, and increased exposure to predatory business practices. However, Trump's corporate pardons have significant downstream consequences for businesses too. Using selective enforcement to advantage certain favored corporations upends a competitive free market and clears the way for corporate consolidation. Smaller companies forced to play by the rules simply cannot compete with corporations who can reduce their costs and boost their profits by paying off the president.

The report also found that while the corporations in question primarily used direct financial contributions to curry favor with the administration, they often appeased Trump by adjusting their corporate policies and public commitments to align themselves with his agenda. Notably, several companies shut down their DEI programs when the new administration took office and the big banks withdrew from a UN-sponsored climate change group. Murphy's report colors in how Trump is not only using the government to give corporations more power, but also directing that corporate power to entrench his own power. This is part of Trump's attempt to replace democracy and the rule of law with authoritarian power and rule by personal favor.

The corporate pardons highlighted in the report include:

1. After they donated more than $1.5 million to the Trump inaugural fund, the CFPB dropped a lawsuit against Zelle and three of the Big Banks who own it. Their customers were defrauded out of nearly a billion dollars.
2. After a $1.4 million donation to Trump and his allies, CBP lifted their import ban on Central Romana sugar, despite CBP findings that Central Romana was exploiting forced labor and human trafficking victims.
3. After a million-dollar donation to Trump's inaugural fund, the DOJ withdrew criminal charges against Boeing after they hid critical safety information from the FAA to cut costs, resulting in two plane crashes and hundreds of deaths.
4. In a handout to the crypto industry Trump now derives a majority of his wealth from, he issued the first pardon of a corporation in our nation's history to the crypto exchange BitMex, releasing them from paying a $100M fine from being convicted of violating anti money laundering laws and facilitating theft from investors.
5. After Toyota paid a million dollars to Trump's inaugural fund, the CFPB released Toyota from paying nearly $50 million in refunds to customers they scammed.
6. After Hewlett Packard Enterprise paid top dollar for lobbyists with deep Trump ties, the DOJ overruled their own antitrust investigators to approve a merger between HPE and Juniper Networks, consolidating HPE's market power and giving them free rein to raise prices on businesses and consumers.
7. After donations to Trump's inaugural committee from both companies, the FTC dropped a lawsuit against Pepsi for helping Walmart crush its competition.
8. After an $844k donation to the Trump 47 Committee, the FTC overruled its own order to rescind restrictions on an oil executive found to have colluded with OPEC oil producers to raise prices on consumers.

In a foreword to the report, Rick Claypool of Public Citizen shows how these examples are part of a broader trend. His research documents over 160 corporations that have gotten enforcement actions halted or dropped by the Trump administration, many of which are closely tied to Trump through business or political support.

Murphy is one of the Senate's leading voices for reining in excessive corporate power and preventing corporations from gouging consumers. Just this year, he co-sponsored the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act, to boost enforcement on corporate bad actors, and the Preventing Algorithmic Collusion Act, to limit corporations' ability to raise prices on consumers. Last month, he released, A Dangerous Prospect: How Private Equity Decimated Connecticut Hospitals, a report detailing how corporate greed caused devastating reductions in the quality and affordability of hospital care in several towns across Connecticut.

Additionally, Murphy believes workers and citizens should have a much more powerful role in our economy. He is a longtime supporter of the PRO Act and this year introduced the Workforce Mobility Act, to limit the use of non-compete clauses, and the Empowering App-Based Workers Act, to increase wages for rideshare and delivery app workers.