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“ Corporate- and white-collar prosecutions at the federal level hit a low in 2022. ”
I presume Donald Trump is innocent of the 34 felony charges that have been leveled against him by New York authorities. I say this not because I like the former president — I don’t. I say it because in America, every person accused of a crime (or 34 of them) is entitled to the presumption of innocence.
That’s how our system works. It isn’t up to Trump to prove his innocence. It’s up to prosecutors to prove his guilt. If they have the goods on him, then I say bring it, and let the chips fall where they may.
That Trump seems stunned by these charges isn’t surprising. The felonies he’s accused of — falsifying business records — are white-collar crimes, which in his mind are not real crimes. Or at least not crimes that are given much priority by the U.S. legal system.
In the U.S. white-collar criminals not always but generally get away with everything from tax evasion, bribery, money laundering, dabbling with mobsters and more. Trump himself has been accused of each of these violations over the years, but never formally indicted on anything.
Note that I said white-collar criminals generally get away with their scams. Of course there have been high-profile cases that sent crooks like Ponzi-scammer Bernie Madoff, junk-bond fraudster Michael Milken and Enron felons Kenneth Lay and Jefrey Skilling to the slammer. But for every sleaze like these, undoubtedly many more get away with it.
In fact, prosecution of white-collar crime in the U.S. has been sliding for years. Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) project reports that corporate- and white-collar prosecutions at the federal level hit an all-time low in 2022.
Source: TRAC / Syracuse University
When I say “sliding,” here’s what I mean: During the financial crisis that almost brought the U.S. economy down in 2008, guess how many people went to prison? One. A former Credit Suisse executive by the name of Kareem Serageldin.
What a joke.
Why is this? The data suggest that federal priorities lie elsewhere, with criminal referrals for immigration, narcotics/drugs, and weapons-related crimes given higher priority. Criminal referrals for white-collar crime rank just eighth, according to the data.
Source: TRAC / Syracuse University
TRAC’s data also reveals one reason why white-collar crimes generally aren’t pursued by federal authorities. It takes a long time — years — to investigate a white-collar crime and initiate legal proceedings. In 2022, TRAC’s data notes, “the average days between receipt of these (criminal) referrals and the actual filing of the prosecution for white-collar crimes was 452 days. This is 3.6 times greater than the average time spent for all federal prosecutions last year.”
By contrast, immigration cases took just 27 days between referral and prosecution filing, weapons cases 103 days and drug cases 128 days.
In an era of limited resources (and calls by some for smaller government), the feds can only do so much, and perhaps are looking for quick, easy wins, as opposed to taking on allegations of wrongdoing by white-collar scofflaws, who can easily afford to lawyer up and drag things out. Such tactics perfectly describe Trump over the course of his long career. He is skilled at playing the system.
Trump’s own view that white-collar crime isn’t a big deal is reflected in the pardons he issued as president. Presidents have an unlimited supply of “Get Out of Jail Free” cards, and Trump handed out lots of them to bums like Rod Blagojevich, an ex-governor of Illinois (and proud alum of “Celebrity Apprentice”) who solicited bribes to fill political offices, most notoriously the Illinois U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama after he was elected to the presidency in 2008.
Trump also pardoned Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner, who pleaded guilty in 2009 to eight federal crimes including tax fraud. Kerik also pleaded guilty to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from a New Jersey firm accused of having mob connections.
Trump may face criminal charges beyond the realm of white-collar crime — like the ongoing Georgia investigation into election meddling, and a Justice Department probe into whether Trump incited the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But the 34 counts unsealed in New York? Trump has survived worse.
Also read: Former President Trump charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records
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