The Heist

Summary

Master Plan Podcast – Episode: "The Heist" Detailed Summary

Release Date: October 22, 2024

Overview

In "The Heist," the tenth episode of the award-winning podcast series Master Plan by The Lever, host David Sirota, along with guest James Bopp, delves deep into the orchestrated dismantling of campaign finance regulations in the United States. This episode unpacks how a strategic series of legal decisions and political maneuvers have systematically transformed the U.S. democracy into what Sirota describes as a "kleptocracy." The conversation illustrates the metaphorical heist that allowed wealthy individuals and organizations to legally manipulate political discourse to their advantage, sidelining public interest.

The Heist: Steps and Execution

Sirota frames the episode as a heist narrative, outlining a three-step plan employed by conservative strategists and wealthy donors to undermine democratic safeguards:

1. Disable the Surveillance System ([09:02]–[09:27]): This refers to eliminating disclosure laws that acted as "security cameras" monitoring political contributions. The Citizens United decision served as the catalyst, allowing unrestricted political spending by corporations and unions without mandating donor transparency.

2. Disarm the Last Remaining Campaign Finance Cops on the Beat ([19:36]–[26:43]): This involved delegitimizing and defunding regulatory bodies like the IRS, which were responsible for overseeing nonprofit organizations and ensuring compliance with campaign finance laws. The episode details how the 2013 IRS scandal, where conservative groups were falsely accused of targeting non-conforming nonprofits, was leveraged to defund and discredit the agency.

3. The Getaway Plan ([54:08]–[58:22]): This final step focused on making corruption nearly impossible to prosecute by narrowing legal definitions and leveraging Supreme Court decisions. High-profile cases were overturned, setting precedents that protected corrupt activities under the guise of free speech.

Key Supreme Court Cases

A significant portion of the episode analyzes pivotal Supreme Court rulings that have facilitated the master plan:

• Doe v. Reid (2010): Challenged Washington state's disclosure laws, with Bopp arguing that such transparency violated the First Amendment. Despite his efforts, the court upheld the disclosure requirements, marking only a temporary setback for the strategists ([00:50]–[05:30]).

• Skilling v. United States (2016): Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling's conviction for fraud was partially overturned. The Supreme Court limited the scope of "honest services fraud," ensuring that only explicit bribes and kickbacks constituted federal crimes ([36:09]–[40:40]). Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg authored the unanimous decision, narrowing the legal definitions and thus protecting a broader range of corrupt activities.

• McDonnell v. United States (2016): Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's corruption conviction was overturned. The Court's narrow interpretation of "quid pro quo" transactions meant that accepting gifts without explicit exchanges was no longer prosecutable, effectively legalizing a gray area of political corruption ([41:52]–[50:40]).

• Kelly v. United States (2020): Convictions related to the Bridgegate scandal were reversed, further weakening anti-corruption laws by distinguishing between monetary bribes and non-monetary favors ([52:03]–[53:22]).

• Snyder v. United States (2024): The latest case involving Indiana Mayor James Snyder saw the Supreme Court unanimously reverse his corruption conviction, setting a precedent that devalues anti-corruption statutes by allowing after-the-fact payments without explicit quid pro quo arrangements ([54:08]–[58:22]).

The Role of 501(c)(4) Organizations

The episode highlights how 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations became pivotal in the master plan. Originally intended for non-political activities, a 1959 IRS rule change allowed these groups to engage in limited political lobbying without losing their tax-exempt status. Post-Citizens United, there was an explosive increase in the formation of 501(c)(4)s, which funneled vast amounts of "dark money" into politics anonymously.

James Bopp explains, “[23:48]” how these organizations were used to bypass disclosure laws:

"After Citizens United, California law enforcement officials, led by then Attorney General Kamala Harris, started enforcing rules requiring these groups to submit a non-public list of their major funders. [26:19]"

Impact and Consequences

The strategic dismantling of campaign finance laws has had profound effects:

• Decline in Corruption Prosecutions ([58:43]–[59:33]): Official corruption convictions nationwide have plummeted by over 49% between 2003 and 2022. The Supreme Court's rulings have made it exceedingly difficult to prosecute public officials for corrupt activities that fall outside narrowly defined legal parameters.

• Empowerment of Dark Money: Wealthy donors and corporations can now exert unparalleled influence over political processes without accountability, undermining the democratic principle of equal representation. As Bopp states at [58:27]:

“The number of official corruption cases brought by the federal government for bribery, graft and conflicts of interest is now near its lowest point in 35 years.”

• Erosion of Public Trust: The manipulation of legal systems to protect the interests of the wealthy erodes public trust in democratic institutions and fosters cynicism among the citizenry.

Conclusion and Future Outlook

"The Heist" paints a grim picture of American democracy's current state, heavily influenced by legal and political maneuvers designed to entrench the power of the wealthy elite. However, Sirota offers a glimmer of hope by hinting at a forthcoming backlash against the master plan in the series' finale. The final episode promises to explore the efforts of activists and reformers striving to reclaim democracy from the grips of corruption.

Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• James Bopp ([02:09]):

  "I want those views to be either accepted or rejected on their merit."

• David Sirota ([02:37]):

  "But unlike Hans Gruber in Die Hard, Bopp was not dreaming of walking off into the sunset just yet."

• James Bopp ([04:08]):

  "The First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even nasty phone calls."

• Ron Doyle ([17:23]):

  "The justices are anxious that big donors would be revealed and harassed and that it violates their First Amendment rights."

• James Bopp ([58:05]):

  "You could let me go and I'll give you $10 million each. It's not a bribe."

Final Thoughts

"The Heist" intricately weaves legal history, Supreme Court dynamics, and political strategy to elucidate how a calculated conspiracy has reshaped America's democratic landscape. By framing the deregulation of campaign finance as a meticulously planned heist, the episode underscores the severity of the threat posed by unchecked political influence and sets the stage for the final installment, which underscores the resistance mounting against these machinations.

Transcript

[David Sirota]

Before we dive in, just a reminder that this is the free version of Master Plan, but our paid subscribers get episodes early and ad free, and you get bonus content, interviews, documents, and videos. More importantly, if you become a paid subscriber, you'll help fund this show and the investigative journalism we do at the Lever. Right now, we're offering a huge 50% off forever discount on a paid subscription. If you want bonus content and if you want to support our journalism, please go right now to lever news.com/50, that's lever news.com/50 to get the deal. Right now. Again, that's lever news.com /50. Now onto the episode.

[James Bopp]

The Lever.

[David Sirota]

Do you remember where you were set the scene for us when you get the call?

[James Bopp]

Was I where?

[David Sirota]

When the Citizens United decision came down.

[James Bopp]

What I do remember was I read the opinion on a beach in Florida.

[David Sirota]

We ended our last episode with Citizens United attorney James Bopp sitting on a beach reading about the Supreme Court's monumental decision in the 2010 case. If you're a connoisseur of Hollywood heist movies like I am, you're familiar with this part of the story. The architect of some grand scheme is 1,000 miles away with a Mai Tai in his hand and gets word that his plan was a success.

[James Bopp]

By the time they figure out what went wrong, we'll be sitting on a beach earning 20%.

[David Sirota]

With the citizens United ruling, James Bopp had helped pull off what amounts to the caper of the century for the master plan. But unlike Hans Gruber in Die Hard, Bop was not dreaming of walking off into the sunset just yet. As the conservative movement's major campaign finance lawyer, Bop had helped create the conditions for the big score. But the Supreme Court had still left the security cameras in place. Those disclosure rules that James Bop hated.

[James Bopp]

I got the impression that they just were worn out and they said, okay, well, we'll just uphold the disclosure.

[David Sirota]

But that wasn't good enough. Bop and the conservative movement thought big donors should be allowed to influence and manipulate political discourse while remaining totally anonymous.

[James Bopp]

I don't want the people who hear my views to have their opinion colored by or affected by who spoke it. In other words, I want those views to be either accepted or rejected on their merit.

[David Sirota]

That sounds noble enough until you remember that the merit of their arguments was backed by unlimited amounts of money wielded from the shadows. So after Citizens United, I imagine Bop was more like Gordon Gekko on the beach, calling in the next move. Yeah, money never sleeps, pal. Bop dusted the sand off his Feet and started looking for the next score.

[James Bopp]

The momentum is rapidly growing to recognize same sex marriage. The northwest state of Washington became the seventh state to make it legal this week.

[David Sirota]

A group called Protect Marriage Washington had started a petition opposing gay marriage in Washington. The petition failed. The public voted to uphold same sex marriage rights. And Washington's transparency laws had allowed the names of the people who signed the petition to be released to anyone who requested them. So Protect Marriage Washington filed a lawsuit to block the release of those signatures. The case, known as Doe v. Reid, wound its way through the lower courts and finally reached the Supreme Court in 2010, just months after Citizens United. And the lead attorney for the plaintiffs was, of course, James Bopp.

[James Bopp]

No person should suffer harassment for participating in our political system. And the First Amendment protects citizens from intimidation resulting from compelled disclosure of their identity and beliefs and their private association.

[David Sirota]

With his eye on getting rid of democracy's security cameras, the disclosure laws, Bopp argued that Washington state's laws, and therefore all political disclosure laws, violated the First Amendment. But the court didn't budge. Even the arch conservative, Justice Antonin Scalia pushed back.

[James Bopp]

For the first century of our existence, even voting was public. You either did it raising your hand or by voice. The fact is that running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage.

[David Sirota]

Scalia schooled BOP on the boundaries of the First Amendment.

[James Bopp]

The First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even even nasty phone calls. When you exercise your political rights, what about just wanting to know their names so you can criticize them? Is that such a bad thing in a democracy? Well, what is bad is not the criticism. It's the government requiring you to disclose your identity and belief.

[David Sirota]

Scalia told BOP that anonymity was for snowflakes.

[James Bopp]

Oh, this is such a touchy feely, oh, so sensitive about. You can't run a democracy this way with everybody being afraid of having his political positions known.

[David Sirota]

In the end, the court voted 8 to 1 in favor of preserving Washington's disclosure laws. There was only one dissenting vote. Yep, you guessed it, Clarence Thomas. Bopp's argument in Dovey Reed had failed. But just like every heist film, there's always another way into the vault. Why be a servant to the law when you can be its master? In our 10th episode, the Master planners. Armed with more money and more political power. After Citizens United, they try to crack the safe protecting democracy. It's a heist story in three parts. Only in this blockbuster, the schemer has found a way to make it legal. Step one, take out the security cameras. So dark money can move freely. Step two, disarm the last remaining campaign finance cops on the beat. And step three, the getaway plan. Make it nearly impossible for prosecutors to pin charges on the perps as they run off with the loot.

[James Bopp]

Anybody can get the goods. The hard part's getting away.

[David Sirota]

I'm David Sirota and this is Master Plan.

[James Bopp]

What about the master plan, huh? Money, money, money, money, money, money. Making up a master plan. Money, money, money, money.

[Zephyr Teachout]

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[James Bopp]

The Bellagio, the Mirage and the MGM Grand. Together, they're three of the most profitable casinos in Las Vegas.

[David Sirota]

Switch out the casinos for the three branches of government and Las Vegas for D.C. and that line from Ocean's Eleven basically holds true. And after the Citizens United decision, the ocean's 11 heist phase of the master plan was underway. Over the first 40 plus years that we've covered in this series, post Watergate, campaign finance reforms were gutted. Money became constitutionally protected speech, and corporations gained the constitutionally protected right to unlimited spending on elections. But to fully realize the master plan, get rid of all the remaining campaign finance laws and then normalize and legalize corruption. That would require a final Hollywood style heist beginning here in 2010.

[James Bopp]

Smash and grab job, huh? Slightly more complicated than that.

[David Sirota]

Now, as every movie buff knows, planning a successful heist always involves three key steps. The first step, disable the surveillance system. What the hell's going on in the wall? Nothing, sir. It's all normal. Show me. In this heist, the security cameras were those pesky disclosure Laws that the Supreme Court upheld in Citizens United and then in Doe v. Reid.

[James Bopp]

You're watching your monitors, okay? Keep watching.

[David Sirota]

To understand how the government's ridiculously weak security system worked at the time time, you gotta first understand what it was trying to police. In the post Citizens United era, oligarchs and billionaires were increasingly disguising their money by funneling it through shadowy charities, so called social welfare organizations, and other opaque nonprofits that were engaging in all sorts of political battles. So after Citizens United, California law enforcement officials, led by then Attorney General Kamala Harris, they started more stringently enforcing the state's rules requiring these groups to submit a non public list of their major funders alongside their annual tax forms. Like security cameras at a bank, the requirements were designed to help regulators keep an eye on things. In this case, the regulators were supposed to make sure that charities and social welfare groups were not committing fraud and were not just political groups by another name. Plenty of groups complied with the new enforcement, but some refused. The master planners didn't want to disclose their donors to anyone. So in 2015, one of the biggest groups objecting to the rules filed a lawsuit against Kamala Harris and the California State Attorney General's office, trying to stop them from shining any spotlight on the darkest of dark money.

[James Bopp]

They're shooting at the lights. They're going after the lights.

[David Sirota]

The group leading the case, Americans for Prosperity, officially a tax exempt public charity that described itself as, quote, devoted to education and training about the principles of a free and open society. Bullshit. Yeah. If you heard that description and coughed like that, it's probably because you're remembering. Americans for Prosperity is the tax exempt conservative political organization set up by David and Charles Koch. The Koch's political machine waltzed into court insisting that being forced to disclose donor information to the government was a First amendment violation because it might make their donors less likely to donate and subject those donors to retribution. Judges in California's federal appeals court didn't buy that argument. But the master planners refused to concede. And when they appealed to the Supreme Court to intervene, support for their case poured in from Powell. Memo inspired groups that we've mentioned before, like the Cato Institute and the Pacific Legal foundation, which pushed the Supreme Court to hear the case in 2021. Here's Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

[James Bopp]

We counted 50 dark money funded front groups filing amicus briefs saying, take this case, take this case, take this case. 50 was a blaring signal to the federal society justices on the court. This is huge for us. We need this. Let's get this done.

[David Sirota]

By this point, the Supreme Court looked very different than it did back when Antonin Scalia scolded James Bopp in defense of disclosure laws. Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were dead, and Anthony Kennedy was retired. And the master planners like Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society had orchestrated a multimillion dollar campaign to replace them with arch conservatives Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett, taking a 5 to 4 court and making it a 6 to 3 supermajority. In oral arguments, this new, even more conservative court immediately started questioning Scalia's belief that the public has a right to know who's spending money to influence policy. The often silent Clarence Thomas spoke up, seemingly concerned about donors to alleged hate groups.

[James Bopp]

Do you think it would be reasonable for someone who wants to make a substantial contribution to an organization that has been accused of being racist or homophobic or white supremacist that in this environment that they would be chilled because they have reduced or no confidence that their contribution will be kept confidential? Your Honor, those.

[David Sirota]

Oh, dear. Whatever might happen to white supremacist groups if their donors had to reveal themselves? Meanwhile, the master planners came up with an argument transporting them back to a golden age of white supremacy, safe and sound.

[James Bopp]

Now, back in good old 1955.

[David Sirota]

1955. Okay, so remember how Jane's Bop, the architect of the Citizens United case, said that he found inspiration from Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP's old civil rights cases that desegregated schools? Remember that? Well, in this new Supreme Court case over disclosure, the Koch group, Americans for Prosperity, also found inspiration from a big NAACP case in the 1950s. That's when Alabama's segregationist attorney general was running for governor, bragging about targeting the civil rights group.

[James Bopp]

Now, we were successful about two years ago in putting the NAACP out of business and running them out of the state. It's the race agitators that cause us the trouble.

[David Sirota]

Back then, Alabama so hated the NAACP that state officials tried to force the group to turn over its member list, presumably so that segregationist politicians could harass and bully them. So the NAACP filed a lawsuit saying, no way. This isn't some disclosure issue. This is an attempt to create a target list. The case got to the Supreme Court in 1958, and as Sheldon Whitehouse recounts.

[James Bopp]

The court in that case very wisely said, whoa, this is pretty dangerous. No, in these circumstances, you and AACP don't have to disclose who all your members are. The government doesn't need to know that there's no real benefit to it, and there are huge risks involved in having that information out where you can be harmed.

[David Sirota]

So 63 years later, in 2021, lawyers representing dark money groups asked the Supreme Court to liken their big donors to those persecuted NAACP members back during Jim Crow. Americans for Prosperity's argument was to essentially insist that that disclosing dark money donors could subject those donors to violent blowback, and so therefore those donors should have the right to anonymity when they bankroll political groups. Here's Clarence Thomas again, citing the Koch group's reference to that 1958 NAACP case.

[James Bopp]

I'd like your reaction to this sentence from the NAACP case. And I quote, the right of anonymity is an incident of a civilized society and the necessary adjunct to freedom of association and to full and free expression in a democratic state. What do you think of that? Is there such a right?

[David Sirota]

The government's lawyer argued that these disclosure laws were hardly an assault on free expression. They only required private disclosure to California's Attorney General's office and the irs. The donor lists were not made public. So are today's moguls spending unlimited money on politics the same as 1950s civil rights activists facing the threat of jail, beatings and murder? The Roberts Alito Supreme Court basically said yes.

[Ron Doyle]

The Court said that a law requiring disclosure of donors to charities was unconstitutional.

[David Sirota]

This is Fordham law professor Zephyr teachout.

[Ron Doyle]

The way that you can imagine that often operating within their psychological frame is the justices are anxious that big donors would be revealed and harassed and that violates their First Amendment rights and it's not justified by the disclosure regime.

[David Sirota]

And why did the justices do this? Teachout theorizes that it was both ideological loyalty to the master plan and also loyalty to the justices social circles. Many of these justices secretly hang out with these kinds of millionaires and billionaires who don't want their names disclosed when they spend money on politics or when they spend money on gifts. For the justices themselves, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito took an undisclosed fishing trip to Alaska with billionaire donors, including hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who later had business before the court.

[James Bopp]

More details have been revealed about the alleged ties between U.S. supreme Court Justice.

[David Sirota]

Clarence Thomas and billionaire Harlan Crow. In light of that, the justices decided that, yes, their millionaire and billionaire friends were indeed just like brave civil rights organizers in the Deep south in the 1950s, and therefore they deserved anonymity. The ruling functionally created a constitutional right to tax exempt nonprofit political groups influencing elections, legislation and politicians, all while keeping the source of their Money completely secret. And the ruling's effects were immediate. Other states quickly rescinded their own rules requiring donor disclosure. Step one of the Post Citizens United heist of democracy was complete. The major security cameras were eliminated, leaving campaign finance regulators probably feeling like Mark Wahlberg in the Departed. This is unbelievable. Who put the fucking cameras in this place?

[James Bopp]

Oh, who the fuck are you?

[David Sirota]

I'm the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy. When we come back, the master plan goes after the cops guarding the vault.

[James Bopp]

Stay down. We want to hurt no one. We're here for the bank's money, not your money. Think of your families. Don't risk your life. Don't try and be a hero.

[David Sirota]

With the security cameras disabled, step two of the Post Citizens United heist of democracy was the next standard move in every bank robbery flick. Kicking the ever loving shit out of the cops guarding the vault. And in this particular movie, the cops were the easiest punching bags of all. Government agents have used the IRS as a weapon.

[James Bopp]

Your medical records now will be evaluated by the irs. The IRS will be screwing people on a political basis.

[David Sirota]

You probably know that. Billionaires, the guys at the Chamber of Commerce, the acolytes of the Powell memo, and all the other master planners really hate the IRS because they generally don't like paying taxes. And their leaders have spent decades berating the agency as a greedy monster.

[James Bopp]

We must radically change the structure of a tax system that still treats our earnings as the personal property. The Internal Revenue Service.

[David Sirota]

But the master planners also hate the agency for another reason. In the world of campaign finance, the IRS is one of the few remaining cops that's supposed to make sure charities that get special tax breaks for their work are actually charities and not political advocacy groups. And so, for the master planners who want to deregulate the campaign finance system, the next step was disarming these cops. And, yes, defunding the police. Now you're probably thinking, wait, why is the IRS the tax man involved in campaign finance at all? To answer that, we're going to go a bit deeper into the whole issue of charities and the tax code that I hinted at a bit earlier. I'm joined by Master Plan editor Ron Doyle, who promised we'd get through this part quickly.

[Unknown Speaker]

What, you don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the tax code?

[David Sirota]

I know it feels like the cure for insomnia, but this is important. So let's get it over with.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, let's do it. So we just told you about the Supreme Court's ruling that ended Disclosure rules for social welfare organizations like Americans for Prosperity.

[David Sirota]

The Koch brothers conservative nonprofit.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly. But we also need to explain how a political group like Americans for Prosperity became classified as a social welfare organization organization in the first place. That's where the IRS comes in. These nonprofit groups are known as 501s, named for the section of the federal tax code that classifies them. If the IRS approves a group's application for 501 nonprofit status, that group doesn't have to pay any taxes. But the law says that these groups must operate exclusively for the promotion of social welfare. You know, classic charity stuff like the Sierra Club or your local volunteer fire department. And originally, these groups were not allowed to participate in political activities.

[David Sirota]

But of course, since so many political groups are now 501c4s, I'm guessing that changed in some sort of really nefarious plot twist.

[Unknown Speaker]

I don't know if it was nefarious, but it was definitely a plot twist. The IRS made a tiny change to the tax code in 1959 that allowed 5014 social welfare groups to still get their tax exemption as long as they are, quote, primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good.

[David Sirota]

So, wait, wait, wait, wait. The law said exclusively. But the IRS in 1959 interpreted that to instead mean primarily.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. And that paradoxical Orwellian news speak was everything. The subtle shift let these groups start engaging in all sorts of political activity. Lobbying, supporting political candidates as long as they could argue it isn't their primary purpose. And that's why overtly political groups like Americans for Prosperity or the anti abortion National Right to Life Committee don't have to pay any taxes.

[David Sirota]

And then came the January 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in politics and elections. While the ruling upheld existing donor disclosure laws, it didn't require the creation of those laws. So big donors started funneling lots of money to 501C4s, which weren't subject to existing public disclosure laws.

[Unknown Speaker]

And Those anonymously funded 501 4s could then spend on so called issue ads like the ones that now plague this country during every election cycle.

[James Bopp]

Senator Baldwin voted against funding to keep violent criminals in jail.

[David Sirota]

Senator Rosen voted with President Biden to.

[James Bopp]

Allow taxpayer handouts to illegals.

[David Sirota]

Senator Warnock voted to allow wasteful spending that caused inflation. RIP Representative Slotkin, voter to allow Covid.

[James Bopp]

Relief to fund out of state luxuries.

[David Sirota]

Tell her to stop the wasteful spending.

[Unknown Speaker]

They're amazing. They're just silly. So right after the Citizens United decision was handed down. In 2010, a whole bunch of new organizations filed applications with the IRS to get that 501C4 designation. I mean, the number of applications doubled in the election cycle. Immediately after the Citizens United decision, 501C4s were responsible for 47% of all outside political spending, a massive increase from prior years.

[David Sirota]

This sudden explosion of 501C4 groups in 2010 tipped off at least a few Democrats that the heist of democracy was in process. And they freaked out. You got to break it.

[James Bopp]

I need authorization authorized.

[David Sirota]

An alarm was sounded by the Senate Finance Committee chairman. He sent a letter to the IRS asking the agency to conduct a review of these newly formed groups to make sure they were legitimate social welfare organizations.

[James Bopp]

Senator Baucus on Wednesday called on the IRS to investigate political activity by nonprofit groups, specifically the GOP allied groups spending tens of millions of dollars raised from a non donations to boost Republican congressional candidates headed into the critical midterm elections.

[David Sirota]

To its credit, the IRS in this post Citizens United period was already aware that something was up. And they'd been trying to scrutinize the applications for 501C4 tax exempt status, just like California had. But given the sheer number of applications after the Citizens United ruling, the already short staffed IRS began using the names of these organizations as a way to try to figure out which newly registered groups they'd need to double check to make sure they were actually non political social welfare organizations and weren't political influence machines. By another name getting a tax exemption they shouldn't be getting.

[Unknown Speaker]

Like the cops issuing a BOLO for a criminal, employees at the IRS's Cincinnati office created a spreadsheet, their own be on the lookout list. If a nonprofit group's name included words like Tea Party or patriot, the group was added to the list. The IRS also flagged groups that were focused on government spending or taxes or that listed plans to challenge the Affordable Care Act.

[David Sirota]

The master planners trying to deregulate the campaign finance system and use money to increase their political power. They hated all of this. They wanted their new dark money groups to get that lucrative tax exempt status. And they almost certainly didn't want the Obama run IRS checking to make sure the groups were following any rules. Especially as they were building their new political machine ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.

[James Bopp]

Special interest money has been pouring into a network of outside political groups at really unprecedented levels. They are expecting to raise as much as $250 million to flood the airwaves in these last few weeks election. That's far more than anybody expected. And most of this money is coming from big fat cat donors, wealthy donors. And it's not being disclosed.

[David Sirota]

After Republicans gained control of Congress in the 2010 election, they launched a campaign to scandalize the IRS for trying to do its job. A Republican led House committee forced the Treasury Department to investigate allegations that the IRS was disproportionately targeting conservatives 501 C4 groups for review. And when the Treasury Department issued its report in May 2013, shit hit the fan.

[James Bopp]

The Internal Revenue Service admitted today that some of its employees targeted conservative political groups for extra scrutiny in violation of its own policy.

[David Sirota]

The report was spun as proof that conservative groups were being persecuted for their political views. And Congress demanded that the IRS account for its actions. Here's Republican Representative Trey Gowdy from South Carolina pretty much yelling at the former IRS commissioner at a 2013 hearing.

[James Bopp]

Is it that you can't say yes.

[David Sirota]

Or no or you're just choosing not.

[James Bopp]

To say yes or no?

[David Sirota]

Can you answer the question?

[James Bopp]

Did you do anything personally to make sure that this insidious discriminatory practice was stopped? Yes or no?

[David Sirota]

Ultimately, the acting Commissioner of the IRS resigned. The head of the division responsible for granting 501c4 designations. She made a public apology, was placed on administrative leave and then forced to resign as well. And then she had to testify in extensive congressional hearings.

[James Bopp]

My counsel has advised me that I have not waived my constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment.

[David Sirota]

Okay, so testify might be the wrong word, given that she pled the Fifth every time.

[James Bopp]

And on his advice, I will decline to answer any question on the subject.

[David Sirota]

Matter of this hearing as soon as the report dropped. Then President Barack Obama faced a grilling from reporters and accusations of weaponizing the irs. He issued repeated public statements expressing his anger and calling for a full inquiry.

[James Bopp]

I've reviewed the Treasury Department watchdog's report and the misconduct that it uncovered. It's inexcusable and Americans are right to be angry about it. And I am angry about it. The government generally has to conduct itself.

[David Sirota]

In a way that is true to the public trust.

[James Bopp]

That's especially true for the irs.

[David Sirota]

Obama also took it in the teeth from the Republicans, namely Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

[James Bopp]

On Friday, we learned that just as we'd been told by our constituents, the IRS deliberately turned targeted conservative groups across the country in the midst of a heated national election. So this morning I'm calling on the President to make available everyone who can answer the questions we have as to what's been going on at the irs, who knew about it and how high it went.

[David Sirota]

Hmm, that, that sounds like that famous line from that other big scandal in the 1970s.

[James Bopp]

What did the President know and when did he know it?

[David Sirota]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of language takes us back to the good old days of Nixon and Watergate. And that's not coincidental. The Republicans took a certain amount of glee in accusing the Democratic President Obama of Nixonian behavior. Nixon, you might recall, had deployed the IRS against his enemies, and it was one of the reasons cited for his impeachment. Here in the 2013 IRS scandal, Republicans leaned into the Watergate analogy. We haven't even scratched the surface yet.

[James Bopp]

We haven't even begun. These are shocking revelations. This is far worse than Watergate. This isn't an enemies list. These are direct actions that were taken against Americans.

[David Sirota]

This was really rich. The Republicans were using callbacks to Richard Nixon in order to try to deregulate the kind of dark money activity that had been at the very heart of Watergate. As Alanis says, isn't it ironic?

[James Bopp]

A little too ironic.

[David Sirota]

But of course the whole scandal was bullshit. A subsequent government probe showed that it wasn't just conservative groups, the Tea Party ones, et cetera, et cetera, that were being targeted. Left leaning groups that used words like progressive and medical marijuana were also targeted for review. In fact, the IRS employee who came up with the initial review list was a self professed conservative. And it came to light that the White House had no involvement in any of this. Oh, and most importantly, none of these groups were actually denied 501c4 tax exempt status by the IRS. But truth wouldn't get in the way of a good story. The master planners wanted the IRS out of the way of their heist of democracy. And so they stuck to their claims that the agency was a big mean, out of control monster targeting poor little nonprofit groups.

[James Bopp]

Where it leads is Americans being bullied for exercising their First Amendment rights. This was federal authorities using the weaponry of government to punish Americans for supporting speech they didn't like.

[David Sirota]

All of this was part of the plan with a specific objective to not only halt the IRS's existing scrutiny of master planners new dark money groups, but to create the pretense for stopping such scrutiny forever. After this manufactured scandal in the early 2010s, Congress began adding language to the annual federal budget that blocked the IRS from spending any funds to figure out if 501C4 groups were really operating for social welfare. And then as the cherry on top, Congress also started systematically defunding the entire agency as documented by ProPublica's exhaustive investigation, the IRS is crumbling.

[James Bopp]

Republicans won the House of representatives in.

[David Sirota]

2010 and began aggressively cutting the agency's budget. Republican lawmakers bragged that the cuts were designed to hobble the agency.

[James Bopp]

We deliberately lowered the IRS funding to a level to make them think twice about what they are doing and why they are doing it.

[David Sirota]

Between 2010 and 2021, the years that overlapped this fake scandal, about 501s, the IRS's budget was slashed by 19% and its staff was reduced by nearly a quarter. With those kinds of cuts, and with the threat of even more cuts, the IRS essentially stopped investigating possible violations of the nonprofit rules. The IRS was so depleted of resources that billionaires and corporations were able to more easily avoid taxes with little threat of audit and then use the winnings from that tax avoidance to pump even more cash into the newly deregulated dark money groups. So the second step in this post Citizens United caper was complete. The last few cops guarding the vault were bruised, battered and neutralized, leaving campaign finance reformers on the ground watching in horror as the heist of democracy moved forward.

[James Bopp]

Criminals in his town used to believe in things. Honor, respect. Look at you. What do you believe in, huh? What do you believe in?

[David Sirota]

After the break, the final step in this caper, the getaway plan. The post Citizens United heist of democracy crescendoed in sort of the same way as that great heist movie classic, the Usual Suspects. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. Out of all the master planners successes, the greatest trick they'd ever pull was convincing the courts that corruption doesn't exist, or at least doesn't constitute illegal behavior. With the security cameras gone and the cops guarding the vault bound and gagged, this was the master planner's last step. The getaway plan. Specifically making sure that the corruption was nearly impossible to prosecute by narrowing the legal definition of corruption and thus making a lot of it legal. And when I say corruption, I'm talking about corruption. Corruption, bribery, fraud, extortion, self dealing, kickbacks. This part of the plan was executed through a series of Supreme Court cases, each more absurd than the next. The first case started with this guy. He's one of the nation's most infamous.

[James Bopp]

White collar criminals, the former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

[David Sirota]

Remember the Enron debacle way back in the early 2000s that we mentioned in episode six, the second largest corporate collapse.

[James Bopp]

In this nation's history, the one where.

[David Sirota]

George W. Bush's donors at the company pushed for energy deregulation and then imploded. And the scandal helped create momentum for John McCain's campaign finance reforms that the old Rehnquist Supreme Court upheld. Well, a few years after that, a jury in Houston convicted Skilling for lying and deceiving shareholders about Enron's true financial state, a fraud that among other things, incinerated over $2 billion worth of workers retirement funds.

[James Bopp]

About half a dozen former Enron employees took Skilling to task. One saying he should be ashamed of himself, another calling him a liar, a drunk and a cheat.

[David Sirota]

Skilling was originally sentenced to 24 years in prison.

[James Bopp]

It is a harsh sentence, in fact, one of the harshest in recent memory for a high profile white collar crime case.

[David Sirota]

When Skilling appealed, a federal court in Texas upheld the conviction. Case closed, right? Yeah. No. Just when things looked darkest for the poor misunderstood Enron mastermind Jeff Skilling, a ray of hope. The all wise and compassionate U.S. supreme Court of John Roberts appeared here.

[James Bopp]

Argument next today in case 081394 Skilling versus United States.

[David Sirota]

Skilling's appeal of his conviction was heard by the Supreme Court just five weeks after the Citizens United ruling. Skilling's lawyers didn't defend his tenure at Enron while the company was lying, cheating and stealing. Instead, Skilling's lawyers argued that the anti corruption law requiring corporate executives to provide honest services was too broad.

[James Bopp]

We think the statute is unconstitutionally vague. We think it's particularly vague as applied to anything beyond the narrow category of bribes and kickbacks.

[David Sirota]

This argument received a signal boost from amicus briefs written by big shocker groups like the Pacific Legal foundation and the US Chamber of Commerce. The chamber actually argued that under the existing law, the threat of being prosecuted for corruption, quote, deters legitimate business dealings. Yes, they really wrote that. Justice Antonin Scalia appeared interested in this line of argument. He seemed worried that fraudsters could not only be sued by their victims, but also be criminally prosecuted.

[James Bopp]

That doesn't give me a whole lot of comfort. I mean, an intent to deceive can be the basis for terminating a contract. So I know I'm liable to have the contract terminated and maybe for damages for the contract. And you say, and also, by the way, you can go to jail for a number of years because, oh yeah, it's very vague, but you intend it to deceive and that's all you need to know.

[David Sirota]

Ultimately, in a decision written by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court's Republican and Democratic appointees handed down a unanimous ruling nullifying a major part of Skilling's conviction and more broadly limiting the anti corruption law.

[James Bopp]

Because Skilling's misconduct entailed no bribe or kickback, he did not conspire to commit honest services fraud.

[David Sirota]

The Court ruled that the law could only cover explicit bribes and kickbacks. A huge win for those engaged in all sorts of other corruption. What the Court did is narrow down.

[James Bopp]

The reach of a statute that's often used to prosecute people in cases involving finance and securities.

[David Sirota]

Here's law professor Zephyr Teachout again.

[Ron Doyle]

What I think is going on here is the Court again is just inventing its vision of what Congress should have done as opposed to its vision of what Congress did in fact do.

[David Sirota]

Teach out has written extensively about this particular series of cases in which the Court has repeatedly focused on narrowing federal anti corruption laws.

[Ron Doyle]

I don't want to suggest that there's a simple, easy way in which the Court could resolve all the tricky issues around the outer bounds of say, honest services. But I'll tell you that's not what the Court is doing. It's not engaged in serious statutory interpretation. It's not doing first let's look at the text, then let's look at the context, then let's look at the history not doing any of that work. And that's where we have a clue that something very weird is going on here.

[David Sirota]

A clue indeed to a troubling pattern where the Supreme Court appears to direct much greater sympathy toward those accused of white collar abuse and fraud than to its victims. In the Skilling case, this left pensioners still reeling from Enron's collapse watching in dismay as the partial overturning of Skilling's conviction was part of what helped him to negotiate a much reduced sentence with prosecutors. The message from the court seem to be greed, fraud and corruption aren't the problem. The real problem lies with those overzealous do gooders trying to stop it. But reducing the jail sentence of Enron's CEO was just the beginning. Soon after the Skilling affair came a case involving such blatant political corruption that it seemed impossible anyone wouldn't recognize it as the kind that needs to be eradicated. It revolved around one of the Republican Party's most prominent rising stars, a guy named Bob McDonnell. Eight months ago I applied for the job of Governor of Virginia. Tonight you have hired me.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thank you.

[David Sirota]

He was a polished, good looking ex military officer who in 2009 had won the governorship of Virginia, a major swing state. McDonnell cast himself as an opponent of the swamp. Our solutions aren't thousand page bills that no one has fully read. After being crafted behind closed doors with special interests. McDonnell soon became the chairman of the Republican Governors association. And he was talked about as a vice presidential or even a presidential contender. But it turned out that this boy scout, Bob McDonnell was up to some pretty unseemly practices for a public official. Dealings that became huge news when prosecutors filed charges against McDonnell and his wife Maureen. Their corruption case went to trial in 2014.

[James Bopp]

Prosecutors are questioning the motives of the couple as they presented their final arguments to the jury this morning.

[David Sirota]

McDonnell and his wife were caught accepting $175,000 worth of gifts and loans. All while they were helping the gift giver try to get the state to promote I shit you not the donor's tobacco based dietary supplement.

[Ron Doyle]

And what seals that are the lengths they went to hide it. The $20,000 shopping trip Bob McDonald says he didn't know about that Johnny Williams paid for for his wife. $50,000 loan to, to both Bob McDonald and Maureen. Also those golf clubs, golf clubs and golf outings that Bob McDonald did not report on public disclosure forms.

[David Sirota]

So this was kind of like the Keating Five scandal, the one we told you about in the McCain episode. But this one was more petty and more flamboyant. The list of luxury gifts the McDonald's received reads like a prop and costume list from an episode of Miami Vice. Okay, we're talking about a case involving a white leather coat, a shopping spree at Oscar de la Renta and Louis Vuitton and use of a Ferrari. McDonald claimed that he didn't know a $6,500 Rolex watch was real or that it was a bribe. The jury wasn't exactly convinced.

[Ron Doyle]

Those photographs of Bob McDonald wearing the Rolex watch were shown again. And he's posing like this. Who poses like this in seven photos? If you think the watch is fake.

[David Sirota]

We'Re going to post photos of the evidence on our website, including the watch engraved with Robert F. McDonnell, 71st Governor of Virginia. When the jury learned that McDonnell used his power as governor to help his supplement selling benefactor legitimize, promote and secure research for his product, hosting events at the Governor's mansion and arranging meetings with state officials, the jury saw it as an open and shut case of public corruption. A jury finds the former governor and his wife guilty on several counts, usually composed.

[James Bopp]

Bob McDonnell sobbing, his head in his hands, slumped deeper into his chair as each count was read. A one time rising star in the Republican party guilty on 11 corruption related charges.

[David Sirota]

But then came the master planners to the rescue. They saw another chance to limit the government's anti corruption laws. Once again, the clouds parted and a divine beam of light shone down from John Roberts, Supreme Court which agreed to hear McDonnell's appeal. Here's Roberts at oral arguments in 2016.

[James Bopp]

Given the difficulty that we're having in settling on what these words in the statute mean, there is an argument in the petitioner's brief that you have responded to in yours that the statute is unconstitutionally vague.

[David Sirota]

In their petition, McDonnell's lawyers pointed to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, the part which basically said that giving favors for access to politicians isn't the same as corruption. They also referenced Jeff Skilling's case where the court ruled that the law against fraud only applies when actual bribes or kickbacks are involved. And the courts seem to think that the problem wasn't what most of us would consider corruption in plain sight. Supreme Court justices seem to think the problem was the government insisting that corruption is actually corruption.

[James Bopp]

In the day's other news, the U.S. supreme Court lent a seemingly sympathetic ear to former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell.

[David Sirota]

The justices didn't challenge prosecutors assertion that McDonnell took money and gifts and tried to hide it. Rather, both liberal and conservative justices zeroed in on the definition of quid pro quo, the Latin term for this, for that.

[James Bopp]

If somebody pays me. No, no, that's the quid. That's the quid side. Yes, I'm talking about the quo side.

[David Sirota]

The justices expressed concern that federal bribery law was overly broad. Here's liberal Justice Stephen Breyer.

[James Bopp]

We're worried because like any other organization, the prosecutors too can be overly zealous. That can happen. And so we need some protection on both sides even though the line won't be perfect and it will fail to catch some crooks.

[David Sirota]

The most amazing moment in this case came when John Roberts cited an amicus brief from Democratic and Republican former government officials. These officials argued that prosecutors definition of an official act which was used to convict McDonnell, quote, criminalized the routine practice by public officials of giving access to their constituents. Here's Roberts reading a piece of that amicus brief.

[James Bopp]

If this decision is upheld, it will cripple the ability of elected officials to fulfill their role in our representative democracy. Now I think it's extraordinary that those people agree on anything.

[David Sirota]

Roberts framed it as extraordinary that people from both political parties, despite their seemingly huge differences, came together for the good of the country to oppose allegedly overzealous anti corruption enforcement. But that patina of bipartisanship that Roberts touted it masked the fact that most of the dudes who signed that amicus brief operate in the same small world of money and politics, working at major corporate lobbying firms whose whole business is influencing the government. Others filing similar amicus briefs included Christian Right attorney Jay Sekulow and Citizens United mastermind James Bopp. The Virginia law firm of Lewis Powell even got involved. It represented a coalition of elite business owners pushing to exonerate McDonnell. Here's Zephyr Teachout again.

[Ron Doyle]

So the explicit amicus strategy was don't find McDonald guilty under this law, or we, your elite comrades, might also have been violating the law.

[David Sirota]

To her point, it's worth noting that the Supreme Court was considering this case after Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas had received some of their gifts from billionaires. Billionaires who would end up having business before the court. So let's just say that some of the justices might have had a personal interest in making it difficult for prosecutors to go after public officials getting gifts from donors. When the unanimous decision was handed down, Roberts made clear that the court was trying to set a precedent that would go way beyond the specifics of McDonnell's behavior.

[James Bopp]

There is no doubt that this case is distasteful. It may be worse than that. But our concern is not with tales of Ferraris, Rolexes and designer clothing. It is instead with the broader legal implications of the government's boundless interpretation. Interpretation of the federal bribery statute.

[David Sirota]

The justices asserted that what McDonald did in exchange for those gifts wasn't official enough to violate federal anti corruption laws. In essence, the Court narrowed the definition of the quo in a quid pro quo. Justices basically said that a politician could accept Ferraris, Rolexes and designer clothing if what they were providing in return to the giver was something like a meeting or hosting an event or facilitating special access to officials, rather than, say, something like a clear cut vote for a bill or a government contract. Roberts, however, deftly ran interference, insisting that in gutting anti corruption laws, the Supreme Court was simply adhering to tradition.

[James Bopp]

Our more circumscribed interpretation of the term official act leaves ample room for prosecuting corruption while at the same time comporting with the text of the statute and the precedent of this court.

[David Sirota]

But was that true? Did the ruling actually leave ample room for prosecuting corruption? After the break, you'll find out. When the Supreme Court ruled unanimously to vacate Bob McDonnell's conviction in 2016, the justices promised it wouldn't undermine efforts to root out corruption. But instead, their ruling quickly caused a ripple effect across the criminal justice system. The Supreme Court's McDonald case has opened.

[James Bopp]

The floodgates for reversals of high profile public corruption cases. In the wake of McDonald, there have been a number of convictions of public.

[David Sirota]

Corruption cases that have been reversed. These cases included overturning the conviction of New York State Senator Dean Skelos. A federal appeals panel overturned their 2015 corruption convictions, citing a Supreme Court ruling that narrows the definition of corruption. Also overturned was the conviction of former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson, who was literally caught taking cash.

[James Bopp]

This FBI surveillance video shows former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson accepting a briefcase filled with $100,000 outside a Washington area hotel.

[David Sirota]

The implications of the McDonnell case were immediate. Suddenly, past open and shut corruption convictions were being thrown out, and there was decidedly not ample room for prosecuting corruption.

[James Bopp]

McDonald said that you can buy influence all you want.

[David Sirota]

That's David Devillers, a former federal prosecutor and Donald Trump appointed U.S. attorney who spent decades working on organized crime cases and high profile political corruption cases.

[James Bopp]

I mean, you can buy someone a yacht, but if there's no quid pro quo tied to it, there's no official act tied to it, then it's not a federal crime.

[David Sirota]

Now it could have stopped there, but of course it didn't. With Donald Trump's appointees joining the Supreme Court, the justices were just getting started. Next up was get out of jail free cards for associates of two of the major political party's most scandal plagued figures, New Jersey's Chris Christie and New York's Andrew Cuomo. In the 2020 Kelly v. United States case, the high court overturned the corruption convictions of Christie's aides in the infamous Bridgegate scandal where lanes of the George Washington Bridge were shut down as political retaliation.

[James Bopp]

The Kelly case that specifically said that the quid pro quo has to be for money or property. That is the official act for getting receiving money or property. And if you remember, in that case it was for shutting down a bridge. And the Supreme Court said, well, that's not money or property. So it was reversed.

[David Sirota]

Then in 2023, the court overturned the corruption convictions of two men linked to Governor Cuomo, one a former aide and the other a developer and donor to his campaigns. Both cases involved bid rigging schemes, and in both rulings, the court unanimously reversed the convictions, further weakening federal anti corruption laws.

[James Bopp]

The opinion of the court is unanimous. The opinion of the court is joined in full. The opinion of the court is unanimous.

[David Sirota]

With America's anti bribery laws facing a death by a thousand cuts at the Supreme Court, you might be wondering what more was left to do? Well, all of those unanimous decisions I just mentioned were actually the prelude to the real getaway plan.

[James Bopp]

We will hear argument first this morning in case 23,108, Snyder vs United States.

[David Sirota]

Ms. Black.

[Ron Doyle]

Mr. Chief justice, and may it please the court.

[James Bopp]

Section 666 applies.

[David Sirota]

Section 666, it's almost too on the nose, but that's the part of the federal anti corruption law at the center of this 2024 case. That law basically says that it's a crime for a public official to take anything of value that influences or rewards them for decisions they make in their government job. We're talking actual bribery, folks. In this case, the small town Indiana mayor James Snyder awarded a million dollar municipal contract to a trucking company that later paid him $13,000 for consulting services. An executive testified that the financially strapped mayor had demanded the cash after the government contract was signed. Snyder was convicted on corruption charges in 2021. But like so many convicted politicians these days, James Snyder, of course, sought absolution from a higher power. The corruption blind Roberts Court. And surprise, surprise, it turns out an array of powerful conservative groups flocked to file amicus briefs supporting Snyder's appeal. Once again, that included the architect of Citizens United, James Bopp, whose amicus brief insisted that, quote, Section 666's criminalization of gratuities strikes at the heart of the First Amendment, potentially criminalizing many forms of speech and association. In oral arguments, Snyder's side pointed out that he took the money after the contract and that if he was convicted for that, it would essentially let prosecutors criminalize anyone giving a so called gratuity to anyone else. But while almost everyone in America would agree that you shouldn't be able to just hand cash to a politician in exchange for a government favor, the Supreme Court is a place where common sense logic is apparently in short supply and predetermined ideological outcomes are the real goal. So justices took the bait. In one instance, Justice Neil Gorsuch floated a really odd hypothesis.

[James Bopp]

Put aside. Billionaires in hospitals deal with small gifts with the teachers, doctors, police officers.

[David Sirota]

Gorsuch was asking if prosecuting a politician for brazen corruption might somehow lead to a world that criminalizes relatively minor gifts or favors.

[James Bopp]

How does somebody who accepts a trip to the Cheesecake Factory for nice treatment at the hospital for treating my child, child well in school, for an arrest made. How does that person know whether that falls on the, what you call the wrongfulness side of the equation or not?

[David Sirota]

Meanwhile, Samuel Alito decided to completely reinterpret the longstanding anti corruption law as somehow endorsing payments to government officials.

[James Bopp]

Well, I am concerned about the breadth of your interpretation. And it all seems to to rest on the understanding of corruptly. The person who gives a reward simply because that person is grateful may not know what the ethics rules are with respect to the recipient of this reward.

[David Sirota]

Ultimately, in its 6 to 3 opinion, the Supreme Court reversed Snyder's conviction, creating a whole new legal precedent declaring that federal anti corruption laws don't actually prohibit after the fact payments for government favors. It was like something out of a Hollywood satire.

[James Bopp]

You could let me go and I'll give you $10 million each. It's not a bribe.

[David Sirota]

Of course it's a bribe. You're offering to pay us money to not do our job.

[James Bopp]

Not a bribe.

[David Sirota]

Taken together, these Supreme Court opinions were sending a deliberate message to prosecutors. Don't even waste your time trying to charge and convict corrupt politicians and corrupt political schemes. And that message has been received.

[James Bopp]

New data reveals a significant drop in corruption convictions here and across the country.

[David Sirota]

In the years since Citizens United and these cases that started with Enron's Jeff Skilling, as corruption has gotten more flagrant, more blatant and more obvious to the entire country, there's been a steep decline in successful corruption prosecutions.

[James Bopp]

The most stunning result, official corruption convictions nationwide are down more than 49% between 2003 and 2022.

[David Sirota]

And get this. The number of official corruption cases brought by the federal government for bribery, graft and conflicts of interest is now near its lowest point in 35 years. In the post Citizens United heist of democracy. This was the final getaway. The part of the scheme that gave the entire corruption industry its real moxie. Anyone trying to buy a politician a government favor, a public policy or a court ruling could now laugh in the cops faces, knowing they can't do much of anything.

[James Bopp]

You're happy because you got nothing. You got nothing in court. You don't got the bookkeeper, you got nothing.

[David Sirota]

It's gonna go. I imagine that when all of this unfolded after Citizens United, it was like the end of that classic Christmas movie heist film Die Hard. And yes, it is a Christmas movie. The locks are cracked, the vault door finally opens, and in there is this gleaming bejeweled treasure for the taking. Only in this movie, it's not just money, it's the whole democracy.

[James Bopp]

Merry Christmas.

[David Sirota]

At the beginning of this series, we ask the how did we get to this point in America where money has taken over our democracy? The campaign finance system has been deregulated, corruption has been legalized, and everything in politics is being looted. After 10 episodes, you now have your answer. The Master Plan has been signed, sealed and delivered. And maybe that's the end of the movie, the end of American democracy. That must be what it feels like for the master planners, who seem amused that anyone tries to even get in their way.

[James Bopp]

Do you really think you have a.

[David Sirota]

Chance against us, Mr.

[James Bopp]

Cowboy?

[David Sirota]

But before you throw up your hands and decide all is lost, just hang on. It's not time for the credits to roll just yet. This is America, after all. Things can change fast and people are pissed. Which means this movie isn't quite over. At this late hour for democracy, there are signs of a backlash to the Master Plan by those who've had enough. We've got one more episode in this series and it's about the folks who are fighting back. Yippee K. That's next time on Master Plan. Double Master.

[James Bopp]

I Earned Everything I'm Not A.

[David Sirota]

Master Plan is a production of the Lever. This episode was written and produced by Laura Krantz, Ula Culpa, Jared Jakang Mayer and me, David Sirota. Our editor is Ron Doyle. Our production team includes Arjun Singh and Ronnie Riccabeni. Fact checking of this episode by Chris Walker. Original music is by Nick Byron Campbell. Mixing by Louis Weeks. Special thanks to Zephyr, Teachout and David Devillers. You can listen and subscribe to Master Plan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube Music or wherever else you get your podcasts for ad Free episodes, exclusive bonus content, transcripts with links to our sources and access to the Levers entire archive of investigative journalism. Please visit Levernews.com to become a subscriber.

[James Bopp]

Well, I'm not a crook. I earned everything I've got.