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TRAC, which compiles the data from requests under the Freedom of Information Act, had announced an all-time low in the number of federal white-collar prosecutions. The decline was the continuation of a trend that began at the end of Barack Obama’s first term—but one that should not have continued this long, let alone accelerated so noticeably.
Three and a half years after Trump took office, white-collar criminal enforcement is in its worst state in modern history.
The figures, disconcerting enough on their own, tell an incomplete story. Things are even worse than they look. Three and a half years after Trump took office, white-collar criminal enforcement is in its worst state in modern history—the result of top-down disinterest in, and occasional outright hostility toward, prosecuting financial crimes; the installation of inexperienced and occasionally inept political appointees and senior officials; and enforcement priorities that are alternately misguided, inexplicable, and politically motivated. Virtually every part of the white-collar enforcement apparatus at the Justice Department is broken.
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