President Joe Biden recently affirmed that the central purpose of his administration was to restore the belief that “what your leaders are telling you [is] truthful.”
This isn’t the first time that President Biden has stressed the importance of transparency to the health of our democracy. In 2021, his administration released the first-ever Strategy on Countering Corruption, which designated the fight against corruption as a core national security interest. The strategy highlighted the importance of preventing the illicit proceeds of corruption from making their way into the U.S. and of holding corrupt actors accountable, among other commitments.
Yet seven months out from the 2024 presidential election, our democracy is on unsteady ground. Dirty and secret money continue to flood our financial system and elections, corrupt actors both foreign and domestic rely on anonymous companies to conceal their crimes or outsized political influence, and the voting rights of millions of Americans remain under siege. The fight against corruption—the abuse of entrusted power for private gain—must be treated as a central issue. Simply put, now is the time for President Biden to follow through on his rhetoric with real, concrete actions.
Critically, President Biden does not need to involve Congress in order to take meaningful action on these issues. While Congress has the ability to pass two comprehensive pro-democracy bills—the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act—that would truly and durably advance American democracy, staunch opposition to these laws by congressional Republicans leave President Biden with little hope for enacting them this year. Instead, the president can and should act unilaterally, through the stroke of a pen, to put points on the board for American democracy through a series of executive orders.
Earlier this year, a coalition of anticorruption and good-government organizations, including my organization, Transparency International U.S., urged President Biden to combat corruption, protect voting rights, and enhance transparency by approving a slate of pro-democracy executive orders. These include establishing a White House Office of Democracy; directing the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to determine the amount of foreign money spent in U.S. elections; calling on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to require that public corporations disclose the full extent of their lobbying activities and expenditures; and directing the DOJ, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and other law enforcement agencies to vigorously employ the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s new beneficial ownership database to investigate cases of corruption, conflicts of interest, and foreign money laundering impacting our elections.
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Each of these initiatives would bring much-needed substance to President Biden’s commitments to protecting American democracy. But this last proposal—that law enforcement agencies make use of the Treasury Department’s new database—may be the simplest, yet most impactful, of them all.
The new U.S. beneficial ownership database, created by Republicans and Democrats through the 2021 defense spending bill, was established to shine a light on the true (or “beneficial”) owners of anonymous shell companies, which are often used to launder dirty money in the United States. But this transparency can also be used to crack down on the use of anonymous companies for corruption crimes in the United States, including violations of campaign finance laws, conflicts of interest, bribery, and other actions that undermine American democracy.
The record of such abuses is unfortunately robust. For example, a Mexican businessman used a shell company to illegally funnel contributions to a Super PAC supporting a mayoral candidate in California, and a recent federal indictment revealed how executives of a Hawaii-based defense contractor used a shell company to illegally funnel a $150,000 contribution to a Super PAC supporting a U.S. senator using government contractor funds.
The database is still in its infancy, so there exists a real opportunity for President Biden to shape its practical usage. Through an executive order, he could publicly direct the DOJ, FEC, and other relevant agencies to prioritize and maximize their use of the new database to investigate and prosecute corruption crimes. This directive could require the agencies to institute specific training programs and protocols on how to access and employ the database, as well as to provide public guidance to state- and local-level law enforcement agencies (including secretaries of state and other election administration and enforcement agencies) on the availability and utility of the database for such investigations. And President Biden could instruct the DOJ and FEC to issue public reports on best practices for law enforcement and election administration agencies to effectively and easily rely on the database when investigating corruption claims. While the database is a new tool, such directives are not only feasible, but in fact imperative, in an election year.
President Biden must protect Americans and American democracy from corruption, and to ensure our elections are free and fair. The policies are straightforward—all that’s required is political will and prioritization. Now is the time for President Biden to fulfill his promises and cement a legacy of doing what he could, when he could, to defend democracy both at home and abroad.
Gary Kalman is the Executive Director of Transparency International U.S.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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