Unceasing attacks came from governments, including the most powerful, as well as from the private sector and non-state groups, pushing agendas in opposition to human rights. Many of these assaults are amped up by technology, with the methods and means becoming ever cheaper and ever more accessible to the masses.

An annual analysis from the Dublin-based international rights group Frontline Defenders paints a devastating picture of killings, arbitrary detention, surveillance, and harassment. CIVICUS, an organization that measures civic space (defined as “the respect in policy, law and practice for freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly and the extent to which states protect these fundamental rights”), documented declines in 15 countries and improvements in only three. The location and nature of the drops were diverse, taking place from mature democracies such as the United States, Germany, France, and Switzerland, to authoritarian regimes such as Burundi and Oman, and including countries in crisis and conflict such as Sudan and Israel. Some types of human rights were uniquely politicized and singled out in 2025, including women’s rights and environmental rights. Freedom House recorded the 19th straight year of declines in global freedom.

All this is compounded by an unprecedented slash-and-burn to international aid budgets for organizations and individuals working on human rights worldwide. The Human Rights Funders Network of almost 450 institutions across 70 countries estimates that by 2026, human rights funding globally will experience a $1.9 billion reduction compared to levels in 2023.

Taken together, this makes the world more dangerous than ever for human rights defenders and they have fewer resources at their disposal to combat the threats.

In 2026 and moving forward, two crucial questions arise for the defense of human rights globally. First, who will do the work of fighting to protect and advance human rights in the year ahead, and second, how can those in the international community still fiercely committed to human rights support them? These questions will be shadowed by another trend: impunity. Yet, at the same time, lessons and a few positive developments from 2025 can guide human rights defenders on how to seize opportunities in the coming year, beginning even this month at the United Nations.

The Earthquakes of 2025

Eviscerating Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Assistance

In the United States, 2025 began with the newly inaugurated Trump administration dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and canceling approximately 85 percent of its programming (from a budget of more than $35 billion in the fiscal year ending in September 2024). The gutting eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars of support for those working to protect human rights and expand freedom and democracy around the world. The State Department’s grantmaking efforts were similarly cut, with more than half of its awards canceled, including programs directly supporting human rights defenders such as one initiative providing emergency financial assistance to civil society organizations and a fund to promote human rights and democracy and respond to related crises.

Most other major donor countries followed suit, though not with the same sweep or to nearly the same degree. Canada said it would reduce foreign aid by $2.7 billion over the next four years, the Dutch announced structural spending cuts of € 2.4 billion on development aid starting in 2027, and the European Union announced a €2 billion reduction in its main mechanism for development aid for 2025-2027. Multilateral funders were not immune to the trend: the United Nations, for one, will see major budget and staffing cuts for human rights in 2026.

The U.S. retreat from foreign assistance rapidly impacted all development sectors, from health, to education, to humanitarian assistance, but no sector was targeted with such enmity as that of democracy, human rights, and governance. Advocates and implementers saw not only the dire resource clawbacks discussed above, but also found themselves tarred by a steady diet of derisive commentary from the very policymakers doing the cutting.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who, once championed human rights and democracy “activists” as a U.S. Senator, even serving on the board of the democracy-promoting International Republican Institute before the administration eliminated the congressional funding that supported it. He once told a crowd at the Brookings Institution “[f]oreign aid is a very cost-effective way, not only to export our values and our example, but to advance our security and our economic interests.”

But as secretary of state, he abruptly reversed course, writing last April that the State Department unit overseeing civilian security, human rights, and democracy had “a bloated budget and unclear mandate,” and that its “Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor had become a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against `anti-woke’ leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary.” Other members of the administration were similarly sharp-tongued about the sector, with now-former USAID Administrator Pete Marocco conflating the promotion of “civic society” with “regime change” in official court documents and President Donald Trump himself referring to USAID’s leadership as “radical lunatics.”

The rhetoric mirrors similar language used by authoritarians across the globe who have long been opposed to foreign assistance for democracy, human rights, and governance work, and it has real-world consequences for those advocating for human rights and freedom. Leaders of multiple countries have seized on the words of the Trump administration to launch spurious investigations of human rights defenders and other civil society activists who had received U.S. funding.

Closing Civic Space and New Technology

Closing civic space is not a new threat to human rights defenders, but it is one that has reached a fevered pitch in the last few years. This has included both an increase in traditional attacks and a greater reliance on new tactics for suppression, especially in the digital sphere.

Nearly 45 percent of all civic space violations CIVICUS recorded for its annual analysis were related to the freedom of expression. The organization documented more than 900 violations of the right to peaceful assembly and more than 800 violations of freedom of association. The most frequent examples were detentions of protesters and journalists, followed by the detention of human rights defenders outside the context of a protest or journalism, merely for doing their work.

Authoritarian regimes also have become ever more adept at utilizing the digital space for repression. Tactics such as doxing, censorship, smearing, and online harassment are important tools in an authoritarian approach. They have been supplemented in recent years by less evident tactics such as shadow-banning, which the CIVICUS analysis defined as when “a platform restricts content visibility without notifying the user,” allowing the platform to maintain an appearance that it is neutral.

Women rights defenders face additional risks online, including technology-facilitated gender-based violence: In a global survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, 38 percent of women reported personal experience with violence online, from hacking and stalking to image-based sexual abuse.

Attacks in the digital space often are also connected with or fuel physical attacks, “including killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and harassment,” as Frontline Defenders reported in its analysis. Tunisia is paradigmatic. Amnesty International reported that, beginning in 2024, a “wave of arrests followed a large-scale online campaign…which saw homophobic and transphobic hate speech and discriminatory rhetoric against LGBTI activists and organizations spreading across hundreds of social media pages, including those espousing support for the Tunisian President Kais Said. Traditional media outlets also broadcast inflammatory messages by popular TV and radio hosts attacking LGBTI organizations, calling for their dissolution and for the arrests of LGBTI activists.” 

What to Expect for Human Rights in 2026 

The absence of meaningful and unified international pushback to human rights abuses by some of the world’s most powerful nations means the rights-based international system will continue to face unprecedented attacks, and the challenges that rights defenders face in the year ahead are likely to increase in number and intensity. Authoritarians worldwide have monitored the assault against human rights in the past year — from genocide in Gaza to the crackdowns on protesters in Tanzania to restrictions on freedom of association and expression in El Salvador and so many more instances — and they have learned that they are unlikely to be held accountable internationally in the near term.

Yet despite these challenges, a few developments in 2025 offer some reasons for optimism in the year ahead. Several large-scale, youth-led movements in 2025 held their governments accountable for rights violations, from the July Revolution in Bangladesh that ousted an abusive prime minister to the Gen Z protests in Kenya over economic conditions and government corruption, a protest moniker that spread to other countries as well.

Some governments passed rights-protecting laws, from Thailand’s legalization of same-sex marriage to Colombia’s laws preventing child marriage. Courts stood up for human rights and held perpetrators to account, from the International Criminal Court’s conviction of Sudan’s Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman for war crimes and crimes against humanity to the U.S. conviction of The Gambia’s Michael Saang Correa for torture, to the symbolic judgment of the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan. These trends are likely to continue in 2026, despite the challenges, because courageous human rights defenders are using every avenue to fight for rights.

This year will also bring targeted opportunities to continue the fight for human rights. A preparatory committee for a proposed international crimes against humanity treaty begins work this month at the United Nations. Also at the U.N., this year’s Universal Periodic Reviews, a regular peer review of countries’ human rights records, will focus on some of the world’s worst rights offenders — including Sudan, Eswatini, and Rwanda — as well as countries with highly mixed records. These reviews provide an opportunity for the world to examine, publicly and critically, the rights records of all 193 countries and for victims and activists to share their stories and insights. While the United States has not submitted its self-evaluation due late last year, the process continued with the usual submissions from the U.N. and others.

Creative activists also are likely to use prominent events, such as the 2026 Olympic Games, to push for the expansion and recognition of human rights. They can take the opportunity of the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations to highlight and internationalize the country’s founding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as the requirement that all governments “[derive] their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Who Will Lead the Fight for Human Rights in 2026? 

As many governments pull back and even attack human rights, the work of human rights defenders and organizations will become more critical than ever. Some of them have been leading the fight for decades, including leading international NGOs, national organizations, networks, and prominent individual leaders. Others have done critical human rights work but haven’t labeled themselves as rights defenders, such as organizations providing access to clean water, supporting girls’ education, or working to prevent violent conflict.

Many work at the community level, alongside neighbors and friends, with human rights defenders networks around the world, from the Mozambique Human Rights Defenders Network to Somos Defensores in Colombia. Some are in exile, fighting for rights in their home countries and for refugee and diaspora communities, like the brave Afghan women who organized a landmark People’s Tribunal in 2025 to expose rights violations against women. Others are professionals whose skills directly relate to human rights — lawyers, judges, journalists, and more. They include people like the brave journalists who continue to report on the context in Gaza, despite the incredible risks, and the Burmese lawyers who continue to document rights violations. Some are individual activists, using their platforms and skills to protect rights and call attention to attacks against them, like Iranian Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi who was recently detained alongside other rights defenders while attending a memorial service for a human rights lawyer. Some are informal coalitions, student and youth groups, or protest participants — social movements have been and will be an essential component of the fight for human rights. All of these actors play a critical role in the human rights ecosystem. All of them are human rights defenders.

Aid funding cuts have devastated civil society organizations and will continue to impact human rights advocates. A survey by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and International IDEA of 125 civil society organizations based in 42 countries found that 84 percent of respondents had lost funding due to U.S. and other countries’ aid cuts, with the same number expecting further cuts in 2026. UN Women reported that more than one in three women’s rights and civil society organizations have suspended or shut down programs to end violence against women and girls and more than 40 percent have scaled back or closed life-saving services. The philanthropic organization Humanity United found that 44 percent of peacebuilding organizations that it surveyed would run out of funds by the end of 2025.

These cuts will only be amplified as time goes on, as fewer young people can become human rights professionals while managing to put food on the table, as legal cases that take years to process aren’t filed for lack of funding, as human rights abuses aren’t documented, as the attacks from authoritarian regimes go unchecked. Shrinking development budgets will no longer provide similar levels of support to courts and anti-corruption bodies that human rights defenders have traditionally approached to pursue justice or for support hotlines where ordinary people can call in anonymously to report abuses at the hands of security forces. Such foreign assistance enabled vital avenues of accountability, but also signified solidarity, that at least some political decisionmakers both at home and abroad believed in human rights and supported those working to deepen and protect them.

But despite the myriad challenges, there will be human rights defenders who continue to fight the fight. For many, changes in funding or the withdrawal of political top-cover won’t stop them from finding avenues. One need only look at Iran’s protests today, where thousands of people are exercising and demanding their human rights amidst a brutal crackdown, internet blackout, and without international funding. Rights defenders have been doing a lot with a little for many years. Some — especially women, youth, Indigenous people, and disabled defenders — have often been excluded from human rights funding and support in the past. A new generation has seen the horrors of Gaza, El-Fasher, eastern Ukraine, or even around the corner from their home, in the news and online, and they have committed themselves to social justice and the prevention of atrocities.

Human rights has always been a universal endeavor which has required diverse supporters, advocates, and allies – this is true now more than ever.

How Can the International Community Support? 

Even those governments and institutions that continue to lead in supporting human rights internationally will need to do more with less, as the above-outlined cuts exemplify, to support those on the front lines. This is the chance to shift “localization” – the practice of funding local civil society organizations directly and based on their priorities, rather than via large overhead-requiring NGOs funded by donor countries — from an ideal to a necessary strategy. A grant of $20,000 may not keep a major international organization online, but it can fund a community-based service provider. Donors can integrate a rights-based approach across portfolios instead of siloing the issue, integrating human rights goals and strategies into other foreign policy initiatives. For example, companies can integrate human rights efforts and measurements into their supply chains for products from batteries to chocolate, producing products they would already produce but in a way that advances human rights as well. Military operations can add human rights and gender considerations with little cost but potentially huge impact. This requires training, tools, and high-level political will to succeed. And they can continue to advocate for rights and use diplomatic pressure and support as key tools.

The elephant in the room is the United States. The Trump administration not only is backtracking on the traditional U.S. commitment and values of democracy and human rights internally and internationally but also has sought to hamper others in funding such initiatives. But there are still important steps that can be taken to protect human rights. Congress must do its job and provide oversight, holding the administration accountable to the laws that protect this important work. Members should speak out against injustices and rights violations, at home and abroad. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), for example, has played a key role in the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, calling out rights abuses in places like Turkey, and Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-NY) led a congressional letter to the Department of Homeland Security urging the Trump administration to overturn its decision to terminate Temporary Protective Status for Burmese people.  State governments have always played a key role in advancing rights, and this will become more critical than ever.

Foreign governments that have engaged on human rights issues but haven’t been the largest international donors or advocates will be particularly important. Some of them are stepping up already. Examples include Japan playing a leading role in advancing women’s issues, South Africa and Gambia taking cases to the International Court of Justice accusing Israel and Myanmar, respectively, of violating the Genocide Convention, and Ireland continuing its steadfast allyship with human rights defenders.

Now is the time for committed countries around the world to continue to demonstrate the global nature of this agenda, set out more than 75 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reinvigorated by 18 international human rights treaties.

Philanthropy and the international private sector will be more essential than ever in 2026.  Foundations cannot offset the huge funding gaps left by governments and multilateral donors — total U.S. philanthropic giving is about $6 billion per year, whereas U.S. overseas development assistance alone in 2023 accounted for $223 billion — but they can provide strategic investments that help protect rights and those defending them, amplify their voices, fund innovative new approaches, and help the ecosystem survive. Philanthropies around the world provided nearly $5 billion in human rights support globally in 2020 alone, and their funding is critical for many organizations.

Companies have their own role to play, one that includes but goes well beyond corporate social responsibility, from responsible tech and AI to eliminating forced labor from supply chains to hiring diverse employees. The private sector has a unique opportunity to ensure that human rights remain on the global agenda, because there is a strong business case in favor of human rights protections and alliances with those who truly understand the needs and wants of local populations. A great example is the effort by numerous auto and electronics companies to move away from cobalt batteries, both a recognition of the horrible rights violations facing individuals and communities around cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a recognition that this move is also better for business due to supply chain volatility.

Defending against challenges to human rights, democracy, and good governance in 2026 and beyond will require creativity and broad coalition-building across sectors that too often are siloed, such as health, peacebuilding, humanitarian assistance, and the field of democracy, human rights, and governance. Everyone who does not traditionally think of themselves as a human rights defender, from government officials to the private sector, will need to step up to support those on the frontlines of the fight to defend human rights.

The post Who Will Stand Up for Human Rights in 2026 – and How? appeared first on Just Security.

Tensions between the exercise of power and its oversight exist in every administration. What sets the current moment apart is the scale and coordination of changes that undermine the systems meant to detect, deter, and document abuse of power. This tracker includes, for example, firing inspectors general and independent agency heads, pausing or narrowing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, disbanding key investigative and prosecutive units, and asserting greater presidential control over independent agencies—moves that significantly reduce internal accountability mechanisms and shift power toward political appointees.

While some of these changes may reflect real reform goals, taken cumulatively, they change not just how – but whether – use of power is scrutinized and constrained, and, ultimately, whether it is exercised in the public interest. 

Each entry below includes a date, short description, and additional context of why the change matters. Key topics include:

This is a regularly updated document. If we’ve missed something, let us know at LTE@justsecurity.org. You can find more about our overall approach to the tracker and our corresponding series here.

The post The Anti-Corruption Tracker: Mapping the Erosion of Oversight and Accountability appeared first on Just Security.

In this episode, Dani Schulkin is joined by former State Department officials Sky Miller and Adam Keith about the promises and pitfalls of the act, and what this tension reveals about America’s ability to lead and enforce anti-corruption efforts worldwide. 

Show Note: 

• “Global Corruption, Local Hypocrisy: The Promises and Pitfalls of the U.S. Combating Global Corruption Act” by Schuyler Miller and Adam Keith (December 9, 2025)
•  When the Guardrails Erode Series by Dani Schulkin, Amy Markopolous, and Maya Nir

The post The Just Security Podcast: Can the U.S. Still Lead on Anti-Corruption? Understanding the Combating Global Corruption Act appeared first on Just Security.

Faced with a barrage of breaking news out of the Trump administration, it is easy to become paralyzed. This is arguably intentional: Flood the zone to ensure the news cycle is so overwhelming that the media (not to mention, the public) cannot keep up. In this information ecosystem, it is crucial that people retain the ability to track how State power is being used. This, in turn, requires systematically identifying linkages between individual developments and broader trends.

The graphic below offers one method, or practice, of resistance to a “muzzle velocity” news cycle that makes it hard to think about, let alone understand, the ways in which the Trump administration is wielding State power. This focuses on threats to press freedom, but the concept can be applied to other broad issues, too. By absorbing each additional news item as a data point for or against a threat to a particular democratic norm, rather than as a singular development, it becomes possible to keep sight of the big picture – and direct action accordingly. (cont’d below…)

Credit: Threats to Press Freedom by Just Security

Click on any of the titles below to see more specific items and links through to reporting/sources.

This graphic is based on an earlier article I wrote for Just Security, which synthesized numerous breaking news items to illuminate a set of growing threats to press freedom. Those threats came from aggressive actions by the Trump administration, such as evicting independent media organizations from office space in the Pentagon in favor of enthusiastically pro-Trump outlets, and from appeasement actions by media outlets – like the ABC’s $15 million settlement with then-candidate Donald Trump in a case that legal experts say it could have readily won on the merits.

There is every reason to expect that freedom of the press will remain under threat for the foreseeable future, but the public will only be able to comprehend the scale and severity of the threat if individual developments are explained in reference to the bigger picture. And press freedom is far from the only pillar of a democratic society that is under attack. One could readily imagine running this same exercise to develop “Big Picture Trackers” that help keep track of threats to judicial independence, right to counsel, voting rights, and more.

Latest Analysis

December 9, 2025

Since the previous update of this tracker in October, most new developments have harmed the media environment. First though, an encouraging development to highlight: On Oct. 15, there was an impressive act of collective resistance by the media. Rather than agreeing to sign the so-called Pentagon “pledge” that would have severely restricted ordinary news gathering, almost all of the journalists in the Pentagon press corps turned in their access cards and walked out en masse.  

Those restrictions reflect the more general trend during this reporting cycle: the Trump administration is increasing its hostility towards the press on two fronts – legal and rhetorical. And these two sets of actions proceed on distinctly different timelines.

With respect to legal action, in cases where media outlets have resisted the Trump administration’s attacks, litigation is moving slowly through the courts. Since the last update, President Donald Trump refiled his $15 billion libel suit against the New York Times that, readers will recall, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday struck down as “decidedly improper and impermissible,” with leave to amend. Meanwhile, in his suit against the Wall Street Journal, Trump also continues to push forward, recently asking the court to deny the WSJ’s request that the $10 billion defamation suit be dismissed.

There is an emerging pattern from the 2024 election season onwards of Trump suing media outlets for enormous sums of money with one of two outcomes resulting. In one set of cases, the parent companies of outlets (including ABC, Paramount, and Meta) moved quickly to settle legally winnable cases; this effectively signaled to Trump that what amounts to a shakedown strategy can be effective. In the other cases, though, media outlets are resisting. The current litigation against the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal falls into this set, with legal proceedings likely to be ongoing for the foreseeable future.

Turning to rhetorical action, this moves at a much more rapid pace. Long before Trump’s current term in office, he was renowned for demeaning journalists who were critical of him or who pursued lines of questioning that he didn’t like. Since the last tracker update, Trump’s disparaging approach targeted female journalists in particular; among several incidents, one example went viral. At an informal press briefing in mid-November, Trump pointed his finger at Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey, instructing “Quiet. Quiet piggy,” after Lucey asked a follow up question about late alleged sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Coming on the heels of the release of a new set of Epstein emails, Trump’s reflexive misogyny generated a public outcry. The result though, has not been for the Trump administration to shy away from these spectacles, but rather to generate more.

On Nov. 28, the White House launched a so-called Media Bias Tracker on its website featuring a “Media Offender of the Week” and an “Offender Hall of Shame.” Individual reporters are called out by name, their articles labeled with tags including “lie,” “bias,” or “left-wing lunacy.” It is the same style of bullying that has long been characteristic of Trump’s interactions with journalists he disfavors, but now it is being promulgated, systematically and at scale, from the White House, on the taxpayers’ dime.

Finally, of particular significance since the last update, the Trump administration deported Emmy Award-winning journalist Mario Guevara to El Salvador, after he covered ICE raids in Atlanta. Guevara had a U.S. work permit and has a U.S. citizen mother and children. Asked about U.S. press freedom after his deportation to El Salvador, he concluded: “It’s damaged … it’s horrible.” 

Analysis from Previous Updates

October 3, 2025

After the previous press tracker update on Aug. 4, there was a relative lull in activity through the remainder of August. That changed in mid-September, with a flurry of attacks on press freedom in the aftermath of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The most high-profile threat in this period came as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr reacted to comments made by late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel in relation to Kirk’s assassination. Two major owners of ABC affiliates, Sinclair and Nexstar, said they would boycott the show, and then Carr, in an interview with far-right podcaster Benny Johnson, implied that the FCC would consider revoking Disney’s broadcast license (Disney is the parent company of ABC, which produces Kimmel’s show) if it did not pull Kimmel off the air. Here are excerpts from that interview:  

“[T]here’s actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters. And frankly, I think that it’s sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, “Listen, we are going to preempt. We are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we the licensed broadcaster (cq) are running the possibility of fines or license revocations from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.”

Whether or not Carr intended this as a direct threat to Disney, that is evidently how the corporation understood it; just hours later, ABC announced that Kimmel’s show was suspended “indefinitely.” President Trump then posted on Truth Social “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

What followed was an immediate and intense pushback by consumers, who boycotted Disney’s streaming service; celebrities, who spoke out; and members of Congress, including Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who described Carr’s comments as “dangerous as hell.” A week later, ABC announced that Kimmel’s show would return to air, although  Sinclair and Nexstar initially still refused to carry his program. Trump reacted with further threats on Truth Social:

“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! … I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative.” (Trump appears to be referring to the $15 million settlement he got from ABC when he was president-elect, after suing them for defamation in a claim that legal experts believed ABC could have won).

The Kimmel cancellation was not an outlier in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination. The Washington Post fired Global Opinion columnist, Karen Attiah, for “public comments on social media regarding the death of Charlie Kirk” (read dismissal email here). Attiah, an award-winning journalist and 11-year veteran of the Post, was also the paper’s last remaining full-time Black columnist. Attiah is challenging the legality of her termination.

Beyond self-censorship and threats to harm outlets in relation to Kirk’s assassination, reporters and outlets disfavored by Trump continue to face hostile conditions more generally. Trump continues to display personal antagonism towards certain reporters, and on Sept. 15, he sued the New York Times for $15 billion in a defamation claim. The judge immediately struck down the filing for failing to meet the basic requirements of such suits, but Trump has leave to file an amended complaint. Another such lawsuit by Trump is also pending – the defamation claim he filed against the Wall Street Journal in August. On Sept. 22, the Journal filed for dismissal of that suit.

Finally, the administration  renewed efforts to erode access for reporters who cover national security. Readers will recall (see the accompanying graphic) that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had already taken action earlier this year to erode access by ousting several media outlets from their longtime offices and desks in the Pentagon press area. Then in May, he posted a message on X severely restricting reporters’ movements within the Pentagon. In a memo released on Sept. 19, he announced that reporters covering the Pentagon would be required to sign a pledge not to gather any information, including unclassified material, unless “approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released…” The National Press Club and other associations of journalists have condemned the memo as a dangerous incursion on the free press, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is challenging the move. The memo also formalizes the movement restrictions, which had gone into effect, with “updated physical control measures for press/media access within the Pentagon.”

August 4, 2025

Since the previous tracker update on June 30, press freedom in the United States has continued to deteriorate. Developments in relation to two threats are of particular note. 

First, there were unprecedented actions in relation to the threat classified in this graphic as “Harm to Outlets,” which tracks instances of State power being used to harass or shutter media outlets. On July 24, Trump signed a bill that Congress passed at his behest to rescind funding it had previously appropriated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Then, on July 31, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted not to provide CPB funding going forward. This marks the first time that Congress, which established the CPB in 1967 as a private nonprofit, will not appropriate funds for the Corporation. The CPB’s role has been to distribute federal funds to support more than 1,500 locally managed and operated public television and radio stations nationwide, as well as their research, technology, and program development. On Aug. 1, the CPB announced that it would be closing.

Second, in relation to the threat category “Currying Favor” which tracks deal-making between the president and media/platform owners, the Trump administration approved the Paramount-Skydance merger. The approval came after Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement deal with Trump over his lawsuit against Paramount over the CBS show 60 Minutes’ pre-election interview with Kamala Harris. (This joins the list of multi-million dollar settlements by major outlets with Trump in relation to suits that legal experts say could have been won by the outlets in court.) The merger approval also came on the heels of an announcement by CBS that it was canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Colbert has been a fierce critic of both Trump and the Paramount-Skydance merger.

Among the dynamics to watch in the month ahead is the escalating fight between Trump and the Wall Street Journal, after the paper reported on a lewd birthday card sent by Trump to the now-deceased child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Invoking tactics that are becoming familiar, Trump excluded a Wall Street Journal reporter from one of his press pools in Scotland, and filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Journal for defamation.

(Readers are invited to submit by email any developments we may have missed. This article is part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions. Readers might also be interested in The Just Security Podcast: Keeping Track of the Big Picture–Challenges to Press Freedom and Beyond.)

The post The Trump Administration’s Use of State Power Against Media: Keeping Track of the Big Picture appeared first on Just Security.

U.S. Global Evaluations Expand to Anti-Corruption Efforts Abroad

Per legislative mandates, the U.S. State Department reports publicly and to Congress on how foreign governments meet international and U.S. standards on a range of issues, such as human rights, trafficking in persons, and investment climate. These assessments inform government decision-making, business investments, academic research, and civil society advocacy.

In August, the Trump administration released its first installment of the annual human rights reports, a State Department publication that has been produced for decades. The release was widely criticized for a lack of candor about certain allied countries (including El Salvador and Hungary), the omission of key issues (such as discrimination), and the unwillingness of senior leadership to promote the reports. That precedent now casts a long shadow over the forthcoming first-ever iteration of annual reports the State Department is required to produce under the recently enacted Combating Global Corruption Act.

The Act, passed in 2023, requires the State Department to report annually to Congress and the public on foreign government efforts to counter corruption, beginning this month. While the Act has not received much public attention, it has the potential to help promote progress and check backsliding on an issue that regularly harms American interests globally.  

Yet, as this Just Security series has shown, the United States is facing a moment when its credibility in countering corruption — and weighing in on the efforts of others — is under strain. In its foreign and domestic policies, the Trump administration has undermined or terminated a wide range of U.S. anti-corruption initiatives. This comes on top of a longer history of bipartisan concern about influence peddling and the extensive role of money in U.S. politics, among other issues. 

Beyond the general issue of U.S. credibility, two challenges warrant particular attention. First, the integrity of the reports could be tainted by political interference or inadequate department resourcing. Second, the Act’s potential will be undermined if the reports are not followed by corresponding policy actions like appropriate sanctions or training for U.S. officials. 

Nonetheless, Congress and civil society should embrace the Act as a framework and a tool among many for reviewing the state of anti-corruption efforts globally, critically evaluating the U.S. government’s own adherence to the Act’s standards, and supporting those who are calling for reform.

A Potentially Impactful Reporting Scheme

Prior to 2025, the United States had recently taken modest but meaningful steps to counter corruption at home and globally. It often did so with strong bipartisan support, based on the understanding that fighting corruption would pay dividends for national security, economic prosperity, and human rights. Recent high-profile initiatives included implementation of the Global Magnitsky Act and Corporate Transparency Act, ethics pledges by executive branch officials, and the creation and execution of the U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption.

The Combating Global Corruption Act aimed at building on this progress. The bill was a top priority for then-Senator Ben Cardin, who secured the Biden administration’s support as one of his first acts when he became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 2023. This was a fitting choice, since it was a federal indictment for bribery and other corrupt acts that drove Cardin’s predecessor out of that chairmanship. After receiving unanimous support in committee – including from then-Senator Marco Rubio – and the full Senate, Cardin’s legislation became law in December 2023.

The Act’s main feature is to require the State Department, by December 22 and for seven years thereafter, to assess and report to Congress and the public regarding foreign governments that are “sustaining or making good progress on anti-corruption efforts.” The State Department must also provide a classified report to Congress on foreign governments “making limited to no effort…and no meaningful progress on combating corruption.” These assessments are to be based on a list of standards and criteria rooted in historical U.S. anti-corruption approaches and international treaties that the United States has ratified. The standards focus on criminalization of corruption, enforcement of the law, and prevention efforts.

In an earlier draft form, the Act was modeled on the State Department’s annual country reports on trafficking in persons (TIP), which publicly rank all countries in three tiers based on the extent of each government’s efforts to eliminate trafficking. By many accounts, the public stigma of a negative TIP ranking or the threat of one have been impactful in spurring foreign governments into improving their record. These reports have also included a self-assessment of the U.S. government’s record.

As enacted, the Combating Global Corruption Act does not require a ranking of all countries, nor the publication of any critical assessments. Still, the Act provides an opportunity for the State Department to highlight which foreign governments are sustaining or making steps in accordance with the Act’s standards. If done well, this “good performance” list could reward strong anti-corruption efforts. This structure allows the U.S. government to at least indirectly highlight, by omission from the good performance list, which governments are not making or sustaining good progress. The Act also requires the State Department to provide Congress a classified list with more information on the “poor performance” governments.

The assessments underpinning both lists should inform U.S. policy formulation and action, and to that end, the Act mandates certain follow-up actions. First, the U.S. government must consider imposing targeted Global Magnitsky sanctions on individuals and entities in countries on the classified poor performance list and report any such action. Second, for each country on the poor performance list, the State Department must designate and train a U.S. Embassy point of contact responsible for promoting the implementation of a whole-of-U.S. government anti-corruption approach in that country. Finally, while the Act does not require a formal self-assessment of the U.S. record like the TIP report, it does call for “an annual update in a classified setting [to Congress]…on the United States Government’s efforts to fight against corruption.” It is unclear whether the Trump administration will provide any public update given that the statute only requires the update to be made to Congress.

In the Background: U.S. Actions on Anti-Corruption 

The impact of any U.S. praise or criticism on anti-corruption abroad will depend heavily on the U.S. government’s credibility on the issue. Some U.S. shortcomings on anti-corruption are not new, of course, as reflected by longstanding criticisms of the campaign finance system, the Supreme Court’s narrowing of the application of anti-bribery laws, or unheeded calls to ban the trading of individual stocks by legislators. This year, several Trump administration actions defy a number of the benchmarks that the Act outlines as indicators of foreign government efforts to address corruption. For example: 

• “Vigorously investigate, prosecute, convict, and sentence public officials who participate in or facilitate corruption” and “convict and sentence persons responsible for… acts [of corruption].” So far, President Trump has pardoned a large and growing number of corrupt politicians and business leaders, signaling tolerance for corruption rather than concern about it. The Administration has also dropped bribery charges against a sitting mayor that it concedes are well-founded and slashed its own capacity to bring such cases. It has significantly narrowed the scope of enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Furthermore, President Trump has publicly demanded the Justice Department indict his political foes, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the actions DOJ takes.  

• “Adopted measures to prevent corruption…” An international expert review recently expressed concern that the President and Vice President have long been exempt from certain legal provisions on conflict of interest and integrity, highlighting the need for these leaders to voluntarily address these concerns. Exacerbating this problem, President Trump in January revoked a Biden Administration ethics pledge requirement for all political appointees without instituting a replacement. The administration has largely fired the corps of inspectors general whom Congress has charged with preventing and combating waste, fraud, and abuse within executive branch agencies, despite congressional attempts to strengthen their independence. The Administration also withheld funding for the body that coordinates among and provides guidance for inspectors general, only relenting following engagement from Congress.

• “Take steps to implement financial transparency measures,” including “beneficial ownership transparency requirements.” The Treasury Department announced in March that it would not enforce a brand-new rule creating a registry that would identify the true, “beneficial” owners of shell companies in the United States. This reform is specifically required by the 2020 Corporate Transparency Act and had been called “the single-greatest anti-corruption step the U.S. had taken in decades,” given its potential to reveal a wide range of corrupt and illegal acts.

Beyond these concerns with domestic anti-corruption issues, the administration has dramatically reduced longstanding U.S. efforts to counter corruption globally, such as by decreasing communication about anti-corruption policy, cutting staff, and scaling back anti-corruption foreign assistance. In contrast to past administrations, including Trump’s first term, Trump’s recently-released National Security Strategy does not mention corruption once. Several additional domestic and foreign policy actions are detailed in Just Security’s Anti-Corruption Tracker.

Next Steps After the Act is Published

In advance of the first Combating Global Corruption Act reports due this month, members of Congress, civil society groups, and private sector stakeholders should consider four lines of effort for holding the administration accountable for implementing the Act and its standards effectively.

1) Scrutinize the reports, amplify conclusions that are credible, and highlight conclusions that are not. In reviewing the reports, observers should specifically examine: 

• Whether the determinations are insulated from political pressure: Look for indications that decisions are being shaped by personal alliances or domestic politics rather than objective criteria. This could be identified by signs of the U.S. government awarding unearned praise to friendly governments or omitting progress by political adversaries. Congress should also review the classified reports for any unmerited exclusion of political allies or inclusion of political foes.

• Whether the process is adequately staffed and resourced: Thin staffing or limited expertise can weaken the underlying analysis and erode the report’s credibility. The Department should share information with Congress about how it resourced the report-writing process. If it does not, Congress should require this information.

• Whether the evaluations reflect rigorous technical assessment: Determinations should be grounded in well-supported reviews by U.S. experts at embassies and in Washington. This means justifications should accurately outline how the governments do or do not adhere with the standards laid out in the law.

 2) Track the Act’s Implementation: Following the completion of the reports, the value of the State Department’s analysis and determinations will diminish if it does not effectively implement the Act’s requirements for considering sanctions and designating and training key U.S. embassy personnel. The Trump administration has been lifting sanctions on corrupt actors, rather than imposing them, making it hard to be optimistic on that count. 

Stakeholders should track any sanctions that appear linked to the reports and urge additional action where appropriate. Further, Congress should conduct oversight on whether the Department is properly deploying sanctions for countries on the classified poor performance list and how the Department is approaching training. Finally, the administration should use its discretion to publicize its views on governments that are not meeting the standards, wherever constructive, and more generally should use the reports to inform policy decisions.

3) Strengthen the Combating Global Corruption Act itself. For example, Congress could amend the Act to require the State Department to brief Congress in a public forum on its findings and efforts. The Act could also provide more specific guidance on the training required for points of contact at U.S. embassies. Some technical clarifications would be helpful, too, including specifying the reporting period to be covered and confirming that the good performance list should include governments maintaining a good status quo or making or sustaining progress.

Separately, several members of Congress proposed a version of the CGCA earlier this year that would institute a tiered review for all countries, as the Act was originally designed. If Congress considers this new bill, which would require all of the State Department’s rankings to be public, it should still allow the Department to submit supplemental information or analysis on a classified basis, as needed. It should also include an explicit requirement that the U.S. government assess itself on the Act’s standards, akin to the TIP report.

 4) Urge the Trump administration (and future administrations) to adhere to the standards in the Act and articulate how it is doing so. If it does not, civil society and Congress should use the Act’s framework to spotlight U.S. strengths and weaknesses. Leading senators and representatives should hold hearings asking U.S. officials why they have stopped practices that Congress rightly and unanimously urged on other countries through the Act. If committee chairs are not willing to convene hearings, other leading members can and should host shadow hearings aimed at illustrating the costs of U.S. backsliding and spotlighting those harmed by corruption. The hearings could include U.S. constituents whose elected representatives have been compromised by bribery or other corrupt acts; U.S. companies that have faced bribe demands when doing business abroad; and human rights defenders and other advocates from other countries who still want U.S. partnership to fight graft and impunity.

Rebuilding the U.S. government’s anti-corruption practices and making them more durable over the long term will require demand from political leaders and Americans across the country. The Combating Global Corruption Act presents an imperfect but useful opportunity for anti-corruption advocates to keep making the case for why such a fight, at home and abroad, is essential.

Author’s Note: Sky Miller previously served as a civil servant at the State Department, where he worked on early implementation of the Combating Global Corruption Act before being separated in a reduction in force under the Trump administration. 

The post Global Corruption, Local Hypocrisy: The Promises and Pitfalls of the U.S. Combating Global Corruption Act appeared first on Just Security.

• Veterans and military families from Ohio and other parts of the country roundly criticizing National Guard deployments in large, Democratic-majority cities as unnecessary and harmful to national security.
• Businesses denouncing abusive immigration enforcement policies for harming the bottom line.
• Disney shareholders criticizing the company’s politically motivated suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! as constituting a potential breach of fiduciary duty that was harming stakeholders’ financial interests.
• Cattle ranchers across regions expressing disapproval of the administration’s plan to import Argentine beef as a betrayal of campaign promises.
• The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which as a body has been largely silent on democracy issues, issuing a rare public statement saying they “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and appealing for “an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”.
• Airport officials refusing to show a politicized Department of Homeland Security video.
• An influential GOP fundraiser abandoning the party over what he says is its “increasingly corrupt and authoritarian” trajectory, and other Republicans distancing themselves from the administration following the party’s poor performance in November’s election.
• JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon announcing that the company would not contribute to the White House’s ballroom construction, citing the potential risks of “doing anything that looks like buying favors.”
• A few congressional Republicans criticizing a recent U.S.-Russia peace proposal for the war in Ukraine that heavily favored Russia, and some beginning to express concern over U.S. military strikes on boats off Venezuela’s coast, suggesting, as many experts have determined, that they may be illegal.
• Public opinion polling showing increasing disapproval of actions by President Donald Trump and his administration not only over rising costs for ordinary Americans but also over the use – and abuse – of executive authority.

These signals of discontent and many more acts of noncooperation, particularly involving members of the Trump-aligned Make America Great (MAGA) movement, indicate cracks in the administration’s power base. The shifts show that a broad swath of people view their rights, liberties, and economic interests as being compromised. Their actions are significant at a time when many members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and loyalists installed in the federal bureaucracy are unwilling or unable to resist attacks on democratic governance, and when a range of former U.S. intelligence officials have warned of accelerating authoritarian dynamics in the country.

Stopping democratic backsliding in the United States will require not only sustained action from large numbers of people. It will also require an “economy of effort,” by which individuals draw on their specific skills, resources, and dispositions to both engage with and pressure the sources of support for authoritarian directions.

Expanding Resistance

Mass protests have widened across the country, including deep inside GOP stronghold areas. The Crowd Counting Consortium reported more than 2,150 protests across all 50 states, with between 2 million and 4.8 million participants in June 2025. The “No Kings” protests in October, possibly the largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history, occurred in 2,700 locations with an estimated 5 million to 7 million participants, including in deeply red areas.

Traditional institutional mechanisms such as voting, litigation, and advocacy remain important for countering abuses of power. However, because multiple political institutions have been compromised, broad-based civil resistance can serve as one of the most effective defenses against the intentional tearing down of democratic norms and systems. Civil resistance works in part because it draws in more diverse and larger numbers of participants into a nonviolent struggle against authoritarianism, including those whose support is crucial for autocratic regimes to maintain and consolidate their power.

A central mechanism linking civil resistance to success involves defections by key “pillars of support.” Governments depend upon the strength, resources, and legitimacy provided by an array of social, political, and economic groups and institutions. Security forces carry out orders, bureaucrats administer policies, businesses provide campaign contributions and market signals, media outlets shape public opinion, religious leaders provide spiritual legitimacy, local civic leaders and organizations confer credibility, and so on. Some especially significant pillars of the Trump administration include officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB); anti-immigration media; select Evangelical churches and Christian organizations; businesses like Amazon, Palantir, and the GEO Group; and donor networks and far-right political action committees.

Small loyalty shifts within the pillars of support — which are made up of individuals with a range of interests and identities — can bring about large changes. Among elements of the security and bureaucracy pillars, for example, even slight changes in their perception of the government’s ability to pay public-sector salaries can motivate decisive shifts.

Engaging Strategically for Democracy

Sustained, efficient, and strategic efforts will be critical to stopping authoritarian encroachment and to providing on-ramps for people to be a part of a movement that embraces fairness and a level playing field. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for effective individual and collective action — much will depend upon one’s position in and relationships with the various pillars of support. The Horizons Project, where we work, and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University recently published a report (authored by one of us, Adam) that discusses five questions that can help orient pro-democratic actors within key pillars.

Some will most effectively defend their freedoms by speaking out, especially those in positions of power and visibility, such as politicians, media personalities, faith leaders, and business leaders. Others will be most effective by engaging in public action to stem the tide of executive overreach — for example campaigning for pro-democracy Republicans in primaries or participating in No Kings demonstrations. Still others will maximize their efforts by standing in the way and refusing to comply with coercive pressure. Think of businesses barring ICE agents from their establishments or police officers refusing to carry out politically motivated arrests.

Apart from strategic questions about speech, action, and noncooperation, there is a separate question regarding whether to act within — or outside of — groups or institutions of which one is a part. It can also be conceptualized as “binding” within versus “breaking” from an organization. Breaking tactics can include refusing to work in jobs that further coercive agendas. For example, Social Security Administration employees resigned rather than complying with DOGE requests for access to sensitive government records. When Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff called on the Trump administration to deploy the National Guard to San Francisco, a wave of criticism followed, including from Salesforce staff and alumni, along with Ron Conway, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, who resigned from the board of Salesforce’s philanthropic arm in protest. Benioff later apologized and retracted his statement.

Binding can involve persuading one’s colleagues (or fellow congregationists or union members) behind closed doors to withdraw their support from leaders who abuse their constitutional power. For example, Ohio National Guard members recently have been communicating with each other through encrypted group chats, discussing their concerns about — and even unwillingness to participate in — politicized deployments. Binding tends to be less visible than breaking, but it is no less important. These tactics complement each other well: Insiders can quietly organize colleagues, gather information on the government’s abuses, and strategize about incentives and potential wedges within specific pillars. Meanwhile, outsiders can draw public attention and escalate pressure.

Building Broad Alliances

The larger and more representative a pro-democracy movement, the greater its chances of encouraging shifts in loyalty among key pillars of support to autocratic actions and regimes. Growth will be facilitated by the building of “unlikely allies,” who may disagree strongly about policy goals but agree on the need to preserve representative, accountable government. Even conservative-leaning constituencies in deep blue Los Angeles County, such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau, the Sheriff’s Office, veterans organizations, and faith groups, broke with the Trump administration over ICE raids and National Guard deployments. Their actions have included police protecting protesters, Chamber of Commerce statements condemning ICE activity and affirming the role of immigrants in LA’s economy, farmworker labor strikes, lawsuits against ICE raids at houses of worship, and an alliance between the LA Archdiocese and local businesses to provide critical services to immigrant families.

Unlikely alliances are possible in part because pillars are not monolithic. Dialogue and engagement with specific elements of pillars can increase the likelihood of defections. This was a key strategy of the Otpor movement in Serbia, which actively fraternized with state security forces as part of a broad-based movement to remove autocrat Slobodan Milosevic from power. The incentives for pillars to cooperate – or not — with anti-democratic forces can also shift as a result of sustained pressure, as evidenced by Disney’s decision to put Jimmy Kimmel Live! back on the air following a targeted consumer boycott and mobilization by fandoms, entertainers, and shareholders.

Facilitating Loyalty Shifts and Inclusion

Although there are challenges to shifting loyalties away from authoritarianism, ranging from retaliation from an administration to threats and harassment, there is plenty of evidence that defections need not be ruinous. The climate is shifting and there is strength in numbers. As the movement to protect constitutional government grows, so too will the incentives for acting courageously.

This highlights the importance of welcoming defectors without shaming them about their previous allegiances or asking them to give up their conservatism. Those considering withdrawing their support from authoritarian leaders and movements may find encouragement in knowing that they will be joining a movement grounded in widely shared values: freedom, self-rule, and constitutional government. And from a standpoint of pure self-interest, permitting the erosion of rights today sets a dangerous precedent that future leaders of any party can exploit, putting all at risk of retaliation.

While encouraging principled action is important, showing people that an alternative pathway is viable, and supporting them morally and materially along their journey, is perhaps even more important. People need to feel like they are joining a movement ready to provide support and celebrate them, notwithstanding political and ideological differences. Faith leaders, businesspeople, and conservative workers and professionals need to know that there will be spiritual, social, and financial backing to help them weather storms when they shift support away from a corrupt and abusive regime. They should believe they are contributing to a bigger project and will thrive in a world without authoritarian governance. This type of solidarity action and big-tent organizing is gaining strength, and is the way to normalize pro-democratic behavior.

While ideological and policy disagreement will be inevitable within the big tent, lowering the barriers to entry and welcoming in those who are newly ready to take action is the way to hand power back to “we the people.”

The post When Loyalties Shift: Americans’ Growing Noncooperation with Federal Abuses of Power appeared first on Just Security.

What is this form of corruption? How does it impact human rights? How can it be countered? 

On this episode of the Just Security Podcast, Host Dani Schulkin is joined by Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Hastings and anti-corruption expert, to discuss the warning signs of this type of corruption, how the United States is showing worrying parallels, and what can be done to push back against it. 

Show Notes:  

• “Is the U.S. Becoming a Captured State? A Comparative Perspective,” by Naomi Roht-Arriaza on Just Security
• “When Guardrails Erode” Series by Dani Schulkin, Amy Markopolous, and Maya Nir on Just Security
• “The Anti-Corruption Tracker: Mapping the Erosion of Oversight and Accountability,” by Dani Schulkin, Amy Markopolous, and Maya Nir on Just Security
• Fighting Grand Corruption: Transnational and Human Rights Approaches in Latin America and Beyond by Naomi Roht-Arriaza

The post The Just Security Podcast: Is there a Fox in the Henhouse? A Comparative Perspective of State Capture in the U.S. appeared first on Just Security.

The Trump administration’s growing use of private donations and foreign financing to supplement congressional appropriations illustrates how easily the Miscellaneous Receipts Act and Congress’s power of the purse can be bypassed. These “shadow appropriations” empower the executive branch to direct money toward its own priorities without congressional authorization or oversight.

Unless Congress acts, the presidency will acquire a second, hidden budget: slush funds drawn from corporations and foreign governments with no external oversight. The power of the purse anchors Congress’s independence, keeping the legislature from becoming a spectator to executive power. Unless Congress reasserts control over federal spending, the balance the framers designed could collapse into a self-financing presidency.

The Legal Framework

The Constitution’s Appropriations Clause provides that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” The Miscellaneous Receipts Act (MRA) gives that command practical force: “an official or agent of the Government receiving money for the Government from any source shall deposit the money in the Treasury.” In other words, the MRA applies when (1) a government official or agent receives funds and (2) those funds are for the government. Once deposited in the Treasury, the funds can be withdrawn only through an appropriation enacted by Congress.

Congress has carved out limited exceptions to the MRA by authorizing certain agencies to accept private gifts. These agencies have specific gift-acceptance statutes allowing them to accept money, services, or property from private donors without violating the MRA. Other agencies have no such authority at all. Where these statutes exist, their terms vary: some require ethics reviews, limit gifts to particular purposes, or bar donors from placing conditions on how their contributions are used. When a gift fits within a valid statutory authorization, the agency may keep it without breaching the MRA. But, unless the law also authorizes the agency to spend those funds, using them would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which forbids federal officials from obligating or spending money without an appropriation or other legal authority.

The MRA underpins a longstanding rule of appropriations law known as the anti-augmentation principle: an agency’s lawful funding equals, and cannot exceed, the funds Congress has appropriated. Any outside money or in-kind benefit used to expand an agency’s budget violates that rule. To prevent circumvention, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and the courts have recognized the doctrine of constructive receipt, treating money or property as “received” when the government effectively controls their use, even if never directly taking possession. The doctrine ensures that agencies cannot evade the MRA simply by structuring transactions such that no federal official ever handles the money.

GAO and OLC have applied the constructive-receipt doctrine differently. OLC takes a narrower view, permitting third-party settlements so long as the government retains no control over the funds after the agreement is executed. GAO applies a broader, substance-focused standard that looks to the government’s practical influence or involvement in how the funds are used. It has historically viewed third-party payments as bypassing Congress’s control absent strong justification.

Officials who violate the MRA may be removed from office and required to forfeit any portion of the funds they hold or would otherwise be entitled to. Though the statute carries no criminal penalties, related laws prohibiting the misuse of government resources can still apply. Together, these safeguards uphold the MRA’s deeper purpose: preserving Congress’s power of the purse and ensuring that the executive spends only what the people’s representatives have approved.

Shadow Appropriations in Practice

Throughout 2025, the administration’s approach to the MRA has evolved from quiet workarounds to overt evasion, an experiment in ever more aggressive executive self-financing. It began in March, when several major law firms agreed to provide roughly $1 billion in pro bono legal services for causes chosen by the administration. Because the government retained post-settlement control over which organizations would receive those services, it constructively received the funds in violation of the MRA even under OLC’s narrower reading of the Act. The deals offered a blueprint for how the executive could pressure private actors to fund public priorities without an appropriation, a dangerous precedent I have analyzed separately.

By May, that blueprint was being put into practice. The Trump administration confirmed that it would accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar for use as Air Force One. The jet, worth roughly $400 million, may be the largest gift ever given to the United States by a foreign government. Now being modified for presidential travel, it will later be transferred to President Trump’s presidential library. Although the Justice Department approved the transfer, the administration has refused to release its legal rationale, which likely relies on the Defense Department’s gift-acceptance authorities. Whatever the justification, accepting a half-billion-dollar aircraft for use as Air Force One stretches the concept of a “gift” well beyond what Congress ever intended.

Two months later, in July, the same disregard reached the Justice Department. It entered a settlement requiring Brown University to pay $50 million to “state workforce development organizations,” rather than to the Treasury, and in November entered a similar settlement requiring Cornell University to invest $30 million in research projects that benefit U.S. farmers. Because the DOJ retained no post-settlement control over the funds, the agreements likely complied with OLC’s longstanding interpretation of the MRA. But they appear inconsistent with GAO’s broader approach to constructive receipt, as the payment neither compensated victims nor related to the underlying discrimination case. Moreover, they violated DOJ’s current settlements policy, contravening the Attorney General’s February 2025 directive not to use third-party payments to non-victims except in limited circumstances.

In July, the White House also announced plans for a 90,000-square-foot “Presidential Ballroom,” projected to cost roughly $300 million and to be funded entirely by private donors. Reporting identified multiple corporate pledges of more than $10 million each. President Trump later hosted the ballroom’s corporate donors at a White House reception, giving private financiers of a federal building access to the president at a taxpayer-funded event. Although he initially claimed the construction would not affect the East Wing, he subsequently demolished it. The administration has offered no legal theory for the donations but is likely relying on a gift statute for the Department of the Interior or the National Park Service. Like the Qatari jet, the project would stretch any such authority well past its intended scope, turning permission for routine donations into a vehicle for privately financing presidential construction.

By fall, what began as discrete gifts and settlements had expanded into a slush fund measured in the hundreds of billions. In exchange for partial tariff relief, Japan agreed to provide $550 billion in investment capital that President Trump would personally select. Because the administration determines which projects Japan must fund, the money is “received for the Government” under the MRA and must be deposited in the Treasury. Instead, it created a parallel, foreign-financed shadow budget under presidential control and outside Congress’s appropriations process. On November 14, South Korea struck a similar deal with the United States, committing $200 billion under essentially the same model. The following week, the Department of Energy’s chief of staff reportedly said in a conference speech that the Japanese funds may be used to buy and own as many as ten new nuclear reactors.

In October, the Trump administration announced that it intended to use a $130 million donation from billionaire Timothy Mellon to pay service members during the shutdown, but it has not disclosed whether any of the funds were actually spent. Using the donation for troop pay would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, as the Department’s gift-acceptance statutes authorize it to receive such funds but not to spend them on salaries.

The Risks of Unchecked Violations

The MRA may seem like bureaucratic bookkeeping, but it embodies a deeper constitutional principle. The power of the purse is Congress’s ultimate check on executive power, ensuring a government of laws, not of men. As Madison wrote in Federalist 58, the “power over the purse” is the people’s “most complete and effectual weapon . . . for obtaining a redress of every grievance.”

History shows what happens when presidents raise and spend money outside Congress’s control. During the Iran-Contra affair, White House officials secretly sold weapons to Iran and used the proceeds—along with funds solicited from foreign governments—to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The episode showed how executive self-financing—raising and spending money outside the appropriations process—undermines Congress’s control over public spending and allows presidents to act unilaterally on major policies.

When presidents can raise and spend money outside Congress, the constitutional balance between democratic accountability and executive authority threatens to give way. Once executive financing moves off budget, the damage radiates outward. Accountability erodes first, as presidents make unilateral decisions—even demolishing parts of the White House—without congressional consent. Transparency disappears next: appropriations are debated, recorded, and audited; donations and foreign transfers are often not. Then comes influence as companies or benefactors that finance presidential projects gain improper access and influence, blurring the line between public policy and private patronage. And when the money comes from abroad, leverage follows, embedding subtle obligations in the very assets meant to symbolize national sovereignty.

These constitutional breaches accumulate power in the presidency at the expense of Congress and, ultimately, the electorate. The MRA and other fiscal laws are how Congress restrains the executive, insisting that no president, however popular or powerful, may spend money without the people’s consent.

A Reform Agenda

To restore control over the public purse, Congress should begin by addressing the four recent executive actions that implicate the MRA.

(1) Qatari Jet: The Qatari jet could be auctioned off and the proceeds deposited in the Treasury, reaffirming that foreign governments may not endow the presidency directly.

(2) White House Ballroom: Congress could require the administration to disclose the size of each donation, provide transparent accounting of costs, and cap the total private budget or shift the project to taxpayer funding to mitigate conflicts. In essence, Congress should hold the project to at least the same standards of oversight and accountability that apply to any federally funded construction.

(3) Foreign Deals: For the Japan and South Korea deals, Congress should not allow any president to personally direct hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign-financed spending outside the appropriations process. At a minimum, it should either prohibit them from proceeding or else enact a statutory framework to bring them under transparent governance and appropriations control.

(4) Private Donation to Pay Troop Salaries: For the $130 million in privately donated troop pay, Congress should clarify that no gift authority permits substituting private funds for appropriated military pay and should require the Defense Department to unwind the transaction and restore compliance with the Anti-Deficiency Act. If that would violate the terms of the gift, the Department should return the funds to the donor or seek congressional authorization to do so.

These steps may face political resistance, but they show the scope of Congress’s authority to correct existing breaches. Even short of legislation, members of Congress can seek GAO opinions and request the ethics analyses and legal authorities the agencies relied upon. Over the longer term, Congress should strengthen the MRA’s enforcement mechanisms and narrow the exceptions the Trump administration has sought to exploit.

Congress Should Strengthen and Enforce the Miscellaneous Receipts Act

Congress should strengthen and enforce the Miscellaneous Receipts Act in several key ways:

1. Require Mandatory Reporting and Real Consequences for Violations

Congress should require agency heads to notify Congress and GAO of any MRA breach—mirroring the reporting obligations in the Anti-Deficiency Act—and to document corrective steps taken. To ensure compliance, Congress should attach meaningful penalties: civil or administrative sanctions for reckless conduct and criminal liability for knowing or willful violations, with a ten-year statute of limitations to preserve accountability across administrations.

Private entities should share responsibility as well. Corporations and executives who knowingly fund projects in violation of the MRA should face civil penalties proportionate to the amount contributed, deterring both improper government requests and improper private attempts to curry favor.

2. Modernize the Financial Oversight Infrastructure

Congress should integrate MRA oversight into the financial-integrity frameworks required under the Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act and the Chief Financial Officers Act. Incorporating MRA compliance into these internal-control systems would ensure that agencies treat MRA risks with the same rigor as other financial-integrity obligations and would institutionalize early detection and correction of violations.

3. Create Standardized Limits on Agency Gift Authorities

As GAO recommended in 1980, Congress should establish uniform criteria for the solicitation, acceptance, and use of gift funds. Those criteria should include clear statutory definitions, a consistent ethics-review process, and limits on what agencies may accept and what conditions—if any—donors may impose. Gift authorities should be confined to small, mission-related support, not major capital projects or operational assets such as a presidential aircraft.

4. Impose Dollar Caps on All Gifts and Donations

Congress should impose annual dollar limits on gifts an agency may accept—both from any single donor and in the aggregate for the agency—to ensure that gifts remain supplementary and mission-related rather than a parallel funding stream for major projects. Large gifts should also trigger an inspector general review and a written report to Congress, preventing agencies from using gift authority to finance major initiatives outside the appropriations process.

5. Require Comprehensive Notice and Disclosure

Congress should mandate a comprehensive transparency regime for significant gifts, donations, and third-party settlements. For any transfer over a specified dollar threshold, agencies should be required to provide at least 45 days’ advance written notice to the appropriations and authorizing committees and to GAO. Each notice should include the source and value of the contribution, any conditions the donor attached, the ethics review, and the legal analysis supporting the agency’s claimed statutory authority. Agencies should also report basic information on each donation to GAO on a quarterly basis, creating a continuous audit trail.

6. Impose Additional Safeguards Against Influencing the White House

Agency gifts directed to the President or Vice President raise special concerns and warrant heightened standards and review. Reflecting this concern, the recently introduced Stop Ballroom Bribery Act would apply additional limitations in the context of the National Park Service’s gift authorities, which the administration likely relied on for donations to the White House ballroom. Congress should adopt a complementary, government-wide rule—applicable across all statutory gift authorities—requiring heightened ethics review for any gift intended for presidential or vice-presidential use or whose primary function is to support their facilities, activities, or operations.

7. Codify and Clarify Limits on Third-Party Payments

Executive agreements and settlements that direct a counterparty to pay a third party can allow the executive branch to influence the use of funds outside the appropriations process, creating risks under the MRA. GAO and the Justice Department have recognized these risks, and DOJ adopted safeguards under the Biden Administration to prevent third-party payments from drifting beyond legitimate statutory purposes.

Congress should codify those principles. First, it should make explicit that funds effectively controlled by the United States may fall under the MRA even if the government never touches the money. Second, Congress should bar agencies from retaining any control or direction over unappropriated funds once an agreement is executed. Third, Congress should establish uniform guardrails modeled on the Biden administration’s safeguards. For example, any payment must have a direct nexus to the statutory authority or violation at issue, and the government may not direct payments to specific recipients.

These requirements should apply across all agencies with enforcement, regulatory, or negotiation authority, not just DOJ. They would preserve legitimate uses of third-party payments—such as victim compensation or remedies tied to statutory violations—while preventing agencies from using such arrangements to finance priorities Congress has not approved. To ensure oversight, any agreement requiring payment to a non-victim third party should be reported to GAO on a quarterly basis.

The Path Ahead

The MRA is meant to ensure that the power of the purse remains in Congress’s hands. Yet, shadow appropriations are emerging in real time and risk becoming normalized. The question before Congress is whether public spending will remain governed by law or drift toward presidential discretion. The power of the purse will endure only if Congress insists on exercising it.

The post How to End the Shadow Budget and Protect Congress’s Power of the Purse appeared first on Just Security.

This in a country that still tries to position itself as a respected member of the EU and a key proponent of EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. At a recent United Nations Security Council meeting, the Croatian representative said the country “warmly supports” the EU membership aspirations of its neighbor, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yet in the same meeting, the diplomat pressed for amendments to Bosnia’s election law to give more power to the hardline ethnonationalist Croat party, the HDZ BiH.

The Croatian government’s normalization of the neo-Nazi far-right is intrinsically linked to its undermining of democracy in post-war Bosnia, a country facing secession threats by a Bosnian Serb leader in its worst political crisis in peacetime, one that has profound security risks, given the ethnonationalist partitionist violence that sparked the wars of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The far-right ideology expressed in July’s concert in Croatia and the sentiment reflected in subsequent Nazi graffiti there that went un-condemned by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) political party were the backbone of the Croatian ethnonationalist war of aggression against central and western Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. Today’s leader of the HDZ’s sister party in Bosnia, the HDZ BiH, is alleged to have requested Bosniaks from Croat-run concentration camps to use as forced labor when he was general director of the Soko factory in the southern Bosnian city of Mostar, an allegation he denies.

Croatia’s normalization of this ideology suggests it may be turning to the dark politics of the past to shape the Western Balkans of today. At the same time, the region has become fertile ground for Russian influence, including the Kremlin’s support of the Bosnian Serb separatist leader, Milorad Dodik, who regularly cooperates with HDZ BiH political figures and endorses their political objectives.

Croatia will be hosting the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) Summit & Business Forum in 2026 on the 10th anniversary of the forum’s founding in its coastal city of Dubrovnik. This will be an opportunity for Zagreb to set agendas on energy and infrastructure in the Western Balkans and potentially whitewash its record of propping up far-right sectarian politics in Bosnia by presenting itself as a bridge-builder between EU and non-EU Western Balkans states.

July’s Concert: Echoes of Croatia’s Fascist Past

To understand the significance of July’s far-right concert, it’s helpful to examine the evolution of fascist and racial ideologies in Croatia since the period of the Second World War. Between 1941 and 1945, a swath of territory encompassing most of modern-day Croatia, all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and some parts of modern-day Serbia and Slovenia fell under the rule of the nationalist, fascist Ustaše regime. Aligned with the Nazis, the regime was founded on a racial ideology according to which Croats were “authentic white Europeans” and Serbs, Jews, and Roma were selected for extermination. The violent and racial worldview of the regime was embodied in the atrocities committed at the infamous Jasenovac concentration camp, where between 77,000 and 99,000 people were murdered – most of them Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Jasenovac was a unique death camp of the Second World War, in that it was run and managed by the Ustaše independently of the Nazi regime, with little German involvement.

During the period of Tito’s rule in Socialist Yugoslavia — the federation created in 1945 out of the defeat of fascist forces by Tito’s Partisans — the promotion of fascism was strictly prohibited, and the circulation of symbolism relating to the Ustaše regime could lead to prosecution and even imprisonment. When Yugoslavia collapsed in the 1990s, these prohibitions fell with them, as ethnonationalist strongmen took control of State apparatuses. In Croatia, the then-newly elected president, Franjo Tuđman, and his HDZ party began revising long-held narratives of the fascist Ustaše regime and its atrocities. One of his party’s unfounded claims was that communist Yugoslavia had exaggerated the crimes committed by the Ustaše regime.

It was at this time that Tuđman met with Serbia’s president, Slobodan Milošević, to discuss carving up multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina between them. In 1992, the HDZ government in Croatia sponsored a military assault against Western and Central BiH via its Bosnian Croat proxy, the Croatian Defence Council (HVO). The HVO worked together with Croatia’s armed forces to seize territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina for an ethnically homogenous Croat statelet. This brutal military campaign created prison camps that became the first concentration camps on European soil since the Holocaust. The trial of the case The Prosecutor v. Prlić at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) noted that HVO soldiers forced Bosnian Muslim detainees to sing Ustaše songs in order to cover up the screams of their fellow detainees who were being tortured. The HVO had absorbed another Croat paramilitary group, the Croatian Defence Forces (HOS), whose insignia included the World War Two Ustaše slogan, “For the Homeland – Ready” – the same call-and-response that Thompson used with his audience at the rock concert in Zagreb this year. During its assault on Bosnia, the HVO was financed directly from the Croatian government budget as it massacred Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs, burned Bosnian Muslims alive in their homes, and ran a complex of concentration camps including Dretelj and Heliodrom.

Thirty years on from these Ustaše-inspired atrocities, the glorification of the ideology’s symbols has returned with the apparent full support of the Croatian administration. The musician Thompson is a veteran of Croatia’s own war of independence from the former Yugoslavia, in which Milošević’s Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) used military force to try to prevent Croatia’s exit from the federation. He has a long history of promoting Ustaše symbolism and attracting far-right audiences that proudly use Nazi salutes, drawing criticism from organizations including the Anti-Defamation League. He has been banned in several European countries, including Switzerland and the Netherlands, for promoting Ustaše symbolism.

Thompson’s concert included a performance of his infamous “Čavoglave Battalion” song, which begins with the lyric “For the homeland – ready!”, the World War Two Ustaše slogan that is synonymous with the Nazi greeting “Sieg Heil.” Despite condemnation of the concert from the EU Commission, the Union’s executive branch, Plenković has doubled down on his appearance there: “I was happy that I was there […] As Prime Minister, it was in my interest to see how preparations for the event were going.”

The EU has the power to freeze funds to member States to enforce compliance with the rule of law. The 2020 conditionality regulation added to its so-called rule of law toolkit established a direct link between respect for the rule of law and access to EU funds. Moreover, it does not need unanimous support among member States to be enacted. The EU has used this instrument to freeze funds to Hungary and Poland, for example. Despite the Croatian government participating in and normalizing pro-Nazi ideological expressions that are illegal under Croatian law, the EU has yet to put such pressure on Plenković’s administration.

Exporting Ethnonationalism to Bosnia and Herzegovina

Even as Croatia has slipped back into nationalism and far-right ideology for years, its ruling HDZ has faced allegations of undermining Bosnia’s sovereignty, including by three former high representatives, a position created to oversee the civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that formally ended the war in Bosnia.

A critical example of this interference is the aftermath of Bosnia’s October 2018 election for its tripartite presidency, which under the constitution drafted as part of the Dayton Accords must be composed of elected representatives of Bosnia’s three major ethnic groups – Bosniaks (Muslims), Croats, and Serbs. (That in itself has been found illegal by the European Court of Human Rights because it disenfranchises voters who don’t identify as part of one of those three groups.) When a moderate Bosnian Croat candidate from a civic-oriented party beat the HDZ BiH candidate for the Croat seat, Croatia’s HDZ joined its sister party in pressing for changes in Bosnia’s election laws that would restore and entrench their dominance. Croatia’s Chargé d’Affaires Hrvoje Curic Hrvatinic pressed his country’s position that only a changed Bosnian electoral system could ensure that Croats could reliably elect “their legitimate representative” to the three-person BiH Presidency. His position implied that only hardline ethnonationalist Croats rather than civic-oriented politicians are fit to represent Bosnian Croat voters, regardless of how they actually vote.

This came to a head during the October 2022 election, when High Representative Christian Schmidt ordered a change to the electoral law to do exactly that — right as ballots were being counted. The changes were widely denounced by civil society, including the Bosnian Advocacy Center, which asserted they constituted “apartheid for Bosniaks [Bosnian Muslims].”  Meanwhile, the Croatian government and its proxy HDZ BiH publicly  framed it a resounding success.

Now, Croatia’s government is once more calling for further electoral law reforms in Bosnia, again for the “benefit of the rights and interests of the Croat people” and Bosnia’s purported “European path.” This follows a meeting between Plenković and HDZ BiH leaders, and comes as the EU considers whether or not to release up to 917 million euros to BiH as part of the Union’s Growth Plan for the Western Balkans.

The underlying objective of the HDZ BiH is the creation of a third “entity” in Bosnia, which under the Dayton Agreement has been divided into a Serb-majority Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat entity known as the Federation. Such calls for partition are in the spirit of recent partitionist attempts by Dodik, the Bosnian Serb separatist leader, who has expressed his support for the HDZ BiH’s calls for a third entity. So when Plenković calls for further electoral “reforms” in neighboring Bosnia, it prompts the question of Croatia’s end goal.

As in the 1990s, Bosnia finds itself again in the crosshairs of a two-pronged attack on its sovereignty – politically for now, but with the risk of an outbreak of violence always present.  As then, Serb and Croat ethnonationalists are attempting to carve BiH into fragments, just through different means. Though the United States recently lifted sanctions against Dodik, EU sanctions remain and his tenure as Republika Srpska leader looks as good as over in the wake of his ban from public office. Meanwhile, Bosnian Croat ethnonationalists have the full weight of EU member State Croatia behind them, while the EU appears to be staying largely silent.

The post Normalizing Far-Right Ideologies in the Western Balkans: Croatia’s Role at Home and Abroad appeared first on Just Security.

Many of these events seem to fall into a definition of state capture: large-scale corruption that distorts both the formulation and implementation of laws, norms, decrees, rules and regulations; provides impunity for powerful actors; and leads eventually to a reconfiguration of the state to serve certain powerful interests.

Much has been written on the United States’ democratic backsliding, illiberal regimes, and competitive authoritarianism, including comparisons with other countries. Yet far less attention has been paid to the related phenomenon of state capture: how leaders weaponize bureaucratic, law enforcement, and regulatory institutions to disable guardrails, evade accountability, enrich themselves and their allies, and reconfigure state institutions to perpetuate themselves in power and use the state for private gain.

This analysis examines the experiences of South Africa, El Salvador, Sri Lanka and Guatemala to illustrate how state capture took root in those countries and the lasting damage that unchecked corruption and self-dealing have inflicted on their institutions. Specifically, it looks to three aspects of state capture in those countries: the weakening of accountability and oversight mechanisms, the entrenching of impunity for the powerful, and the instrumentalizing of political power for personal and party gain.

Every case unfolds differently, and the trajectory of the United States will have its own pace and form, but the recurring patterns abroad offer a cautionary guide. By comparing, it may be possible to foresee – and maybe even prevent – future steps down the path to full-blown takeover of the state for the private, self-perpetuating interests of the president, his family, associates and friends.

State Capture: South Africa

Under President Jacob Zuma (2009-2018), South Africa became a notable (though little discussed) illustration of state capture. In 2018, Zuma was forced to resign, soon after the empaneling of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture (known as the Zondo Commission after its chair). The Commission held over 400 televised hearings and published a multi-volume report in 2022 detailing the nefarious efforts of the former president and his team to channel state funds to himself, his family and his cronies. The Commission’s Report found that Zuma allowed the Guptas, a family of Indian-origin businessmen, to steal billions from the state, including through shady contracts and kickbacks schemes involving the mining, energy, transportation, agriculture and communications sectors.

Weakening of Accountability and Oversight Mechanisms

The Commission found that Zuma and the Guptas were able to implement the takeover of state institutions for their own ends. The Guptas were able to install their own loyalists and influence the hiring and firing of state personnel. For example, former Minerals Minister Adv. Ngoako Ramatlhodi was removed for refusing to cooperate with the Guptas and replaced by Mosebenzi Zwane, whose appointment the Guptas had specifically sought. The heads of all three intelligence agencies were fired and replaced. With allies in place, the Guptas and the Zuma family obtained lucrative state contracts but did no work, created kickback schemes, and used state resources like military airports or the national airline as their private assets.

The Zondo Commission Report found that the Zuma government sidelined, attacked, and fired state auditors and civil servants and imposed often-unqualified loyalists instead. Zuma’s government privatized auditing of state-related accounts and procurement contracts to international auditing firms that never seemed to find any graft. In particular, the Commission found that the South African Revenue Service (SARS) had been systematically dismantled. Its report found that over 2000 experienced personnel were fired or pressured into quitting by a “culture of fear and bullying,” and that its investigative and auditing functions were taken over by unqualified but politically compliant staff in the name of restructuring and dismantling a (nonexistent) rogue unit. The Tax Commissioner was handpicked despite his lack of qualifications and without following the regulations of the South African Revenue Act, and worked with consultants Bain & Company and Zuma to dismantle crucial parts of SARS, such as the Projects and Evidence Management and Technical Support Division, which severely undermined the tax authority’s ability to combat illicit economic activity.

Impunity

Under Zuma, prosecutorial and police functions were weakened to produce impunity for the looting. The number of prosecutors decreased by 22%, with steeper losses in anti-corruption units. The National Director of Public Prosecutions was pressured and then received a “golden handshake” to resign, anti-corruption prosecutors found themselves the subject of spurious charges and investigations; and the new chief prosecutor refused to investigate anyone near Zuma. Anti-corruption activists were prosecuted, while serious corruption cases were delayed or dismissed. The FBI equivalent (known as the Hawks) was placed under direct executive branch control despite Constitutional Court rulings requiring it to be independent; all four of its directors under Zuma were later charged with fraud and corruption. Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, a constitutionally mandated anti-corruption watchdog looking into Zuma’s corruption, became the subject of an unfounded intelligence ministry probe. Judges who questioned Zuma’s actions were attacked in the media as representatives of a “judicial dictatorship,” while Zuma ignored decisions of the Constitutional Court on using tax revenue for personal expenses.

Enrichment

The consequences of the unchecked graft and the corruption have been felt throughout South Africa until today. The country lost between US$3 and $17 billion and GDP shrunk by 4% a year. Most of that money will never be recovered since the Guptas have fled to the UAE and apparently will not be extradited. Trust in the ANC-led government was shaken, and public services like the national airline, electricity and transportation were devastated and pushed to near-bankruptcy, with long-lasting effects including blackouts and service cuts that persist. Zuma and his accomplices face multiple (albeit slow and incomplete) investigations and prosecutions as a result of the Commission’s findings, and some stronger anti-corruption laws have been passed, but many of the Zondo Commission’s recommendations are still pending. Bain & Company was barred from doing business in the country for ten years.

State Capture: El Salvador

Nayib Bukele was elected in 2019 on an anti-crime platform, backed by a small right-wing political party. He spent the next two years building up his own party, New Ideas, and in the 2021 legislative elections won an overwhelming majority in the legislature. With no meaningful legislative checks, he began a process of institutional dismantling and repurposing to his agenda.

Weakening of Accountability and Oversight Mechanisms

Bukele began by putting his people into those parts of government that were supposed to be independent. The constitutionally independent Court of Accounts (public auditor), the Electoral Tribunal and the Human Rights Ombudsman’s office were filled with party loyalists. Civil servants who protested budget cuts to education and health were fired.

A “state of exception” has now been in place for over three years, reapproved by Congress with no debate every thirty days, thus creating a permanent emergency that broadens discretion and removes accountability. The state of exception, as detailed here, limits access to an attorney, weakens due process, and has resulted in some 85,000 people held indefinitely under harsh conditions, with over 430 deaths in custody. There is no judicial oversight or public data available on anything related to the state of emergency.

Impunity

 Once he had a congressional majority, Bukele quickly replaced an independent prosecutor with a loyal one, who dissolved anti-corruption units and closed down investigations into Covid-era corruption and negotiations with gang leaders. The legislature in 2021 granted retroactive immunity for any irregularities arising from pandemic-related spending. Despite campaign promises of support, Bukele soon  terminated an anti-corruption commission backed by the Organization for American States.

The Bukele-controlled legislature quickly also attacked the judiciary, removing the entire Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court and replacing it with new judges; they soon authorized Bukele’s indefinite reelection despite a constitutional prohibition, and refused to take up cases arising from the state of emergency. His civil service “reform” effort removed the country’s few independent judges under the pretext of imposing (arbitrary) age limits.

Enrichment

The U.S. government in 2021 sanctioned three Bukele ministers/advisors for corruption in COVID-19-related contracting and negotiating with gangs for votes. There have been persistent reports of widespread corruption in the prison system, with prison officials at all levels extorting the families of detainees. Bukele, his brother/advisors and family have recently bought 361 hectares of land, and a company under their control went from $14,000 in capital to over $6 million from 2021 to 2023. It has been difficult to pursue information about their financial dealings because of a crackdown on information access. A 2023 law on public contracting removed from public scrutiny contracts designated as “strategic” by the presidency as well as municipal spending. Information on spending and loans for building new prisons (like the infamous CECOT) is also classified along with security plans and policies, the declared assets of the president and the finances of several government funds, including one dedicated to bitcoin. The asset declarations of public officials, required to compare asset levels before and after public service, are now classified.

As a result of these changes, there are few limits on Bukele and his party. El Salvador today faces increased authoritarianism, including imprisonment and exile of journalists and anti-corruption activists, widespread extortion and abuse related to mass imprisonment, and a climate of fear in poor neighborhoods.

State Capture: Sri Lanka

The Rajapaksa family dominated Sri Lanka’s politics from 2005 to 2022 (with a brief pause from 2015-2019). Its reign only ended when economic collapse and massive popular demonstrations forced the family from power.

Weakening of Accountability and Oversight Mechanisms

The Rajapaksas came to power after brutally defeating an armed insurgency in the north and east of the country. They promptly centralized power, culminating in 2020 with the 20^th amendment to the Constitution. This amendment changed government from a parliamentary system to one concentrated in the executive branch, giving the president broad immunity, the ability to hold ministries, appoint and remove ministers, dissolve Parliament after a shorter period, and control appointments to independent commissions—including those for elections, public service, police, and anti-bribery. The (anti-) Bribery Commission lost the ability to initiate investigations, and the reform abolished the national procurement commission and the audit service commission.

Impunity

Attacks on the independence of the judiciary were common during the Rajapaksa period. Then-chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake was impeached and removed from office in 2013 despite a prohibition from the Supreme Court and replaced by a Rajapaksa ally. Mobs and media campaigns attacked judges. The 2020 constitutional amendment gave the president the right to name the top levels of the judiciary, And in 2021, the prime minister attempted to stop ongoing trials against high-ranking officials accused of serious human rights violations, as well as family members of the President and Prime Minister facing corruption charges. Killings, enforced disappearances and other rights violations arising from the destruction of the Tamil insurgency continue largely uninvestigated.

Enrichment 

At one point more than 40 family members served in key government positions, controlling a quarter (by some estimates three quarters) of the budget. They steered huge infrastructure contracts, often obtained through onerous loans, to their hometown, their family and friends. At the same time, they amassed great wealth. Estimates of the money they stole during their time in office range from $5.3 up to $7 billion, including properties in London and Dubai, a network of shell companies and offshore trusts.

They slashed taxes, expanded corporate tax exemptions and made other disastrous and uninformed economic decisions, leading to the meltdown of the economy. That meltdown caused widespread suffering, More than a million Sri Lankans lost their jobs and a million households lost access to electricity. Over four million people were pushed below the national poverty line.

State Capture: Guatemala

Until 2023, Guatemala followed some of the patterns described above, except that those in charge were not a single strongman or family but a group of state officials and private elites aligned with sectors of the military and of organized crime, popularly known as the “pact of the corrupt.” The election of Bernardo Arévalo as president on an anti-corruption campaign has led to some positive changes since 2023, but also shows the limits of changing the president while the underlying structures of state capture remain intact.

Weakening of Accountability and Oversight Mechanisms

Guatemala under three successive presidents (2011-2023) saw the partial or total dismantling of even the weak safeguards in place. The Human Rights Ombudsman was threatened and eventually forced to leave the country, while the head of the Tax Agency, Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa, was fired and then jailed for “ideological falsity.” The national university and the ad-hoc committees in charge of judicial selection were taken over by forces aligned with the “pact.” Journalists like José Zamora who investigated corruption were jailed on spurious charges. The most important efforts to weaken accountability and entrench impunity concerned the justice system.

Impunity

Created in 2006 through a U.N.-Guatemala agreement, Guatemala’s International Commission against Impunity (CICIG)’s hybrid structure—international investigators working with national prosecutors—was designed to prosecute shady organized-crime networks that had captured the state. Over a decade, the commission and its Guatemalan partners helped convict hundreds of officials, including two presidents and numerous ministers, and drove major legislative reforms. The Commission closed in 2019 after then-president Morales refused to renew its mandate. Meanwhile, Morales appointed Consuelo Porras as Attorney General.

Porras, whom the United States later sanctioned for corruption, began closing investigations, declining to revoke the immunity of allegedly corrupt judges and dropping cases. Porras redirected the office away from prosecuting large-scale corruption cases and into political vengeance against perceived enemies. Prosecutors themselves, along with judges and administrators connected to CICIG, were prosecuted for doing their jobs, on spurious charges including unauthorized removal of documents (that were in danger of being destroyed) or (unspecified) abuse of authority. Many had to flee the country, and several spent years in jail.

Enrichment

Ex-Presidents Portillo and Perez Molina were convicted for money laundering or embezzlement, while ex-President Morales was accused of illegal campaign finance but never prosecuted, and ex-President Giammattei and his secretary were sanctioned by the United States for receiving bribes, including from Russian mining interests.

Since 2023, however, prosecutions target President Arévalo, his political party, and students and indigenous leaders who defended his electoral victory. It has proven impossible for Arévalo to oust Porras, her deputies, or the judges aligned with her, or to stop her harassment. As a result, Arévalo has been stymied in his attempts to clean up the corruption and improve public services, and public frustration continues to grow. Porras’ term, along with that of the Constitutional Court, ends in 2026. The “pact of the corrupt” is expected to fight any efforts to install a less pliant figure as Attorney General.

Similarities to the United States

Weakening of Accountability and Oversight Mechanisms

In the United States, we see many of the same worrisome signs. The civil service has come under political pressure, with experts replaced or reassigned for perceived disloyalty or random cost-cutting and increased numbers of political appointees. Offices focused on fraud, self-dealing, and conflicts of interest—such as inspector generals, consumer protection, whistleblowers, and ethics counsel—have been hollowed out or sidelined. Roughly a quarter of the investigations staff within the Internal Revenue Service and almost a third of tax auditors have left or been removed; by 2027 half the enforcement budget will be gone. Enforcement aimed at tax shelters used by the very rich has been dismantled, and longtime employees who worked on reining in the shelters removed.

The administration has also increasingly relied on “acting” officials and ad hoc advisers—family members, business associates, or donors—to bypass normal vetting and confirmation processes. Businesspeople like Elon Musk have been placed in informal roles, such as the head of the nebulous DOGE entity, without statutory authority or oversight. Such maneuvers may appear bureaucratic, but they erode transparency and public trust in equal enforcement of the law—which is precisely the point.

Impunity

As widely noted, the Department of Justice and the FBI have been politicized, with prosecutors hired and fired based on their charging decisions or perceived loyalties. Experienced officials have moved to unfamiliar posts both to encourage them to leave and to undermine the efficiency of accountability mechanisms, as when FBI and DOJ agents were moved from investigating public corruption to immigration beats. Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section reportedly saw its staff fall from 30 to five attorneys.

Inconvenient investigations, such as those into ICE Commissioner Thomas Homan’s apparent receipt of a $50,000 bribe, have been shelved, and tax audits of friends halted or dismissed, while the government threatens audits and even to deny tax-exempt status to perceived enemies.

Enrichment

Examples of the enrichment of family, friends and ideological allies of the president abound, and have been detailed here, here and here, among others. In short, through the pardon power, executive orders and regulatory efforts (especially around crypto policy), various pay-to-play initiatives, increasing opacity and secrecy, and complex deals with foreign powers, the United States is edging closer to the kind of captured state it has long advised other countries to combat.

* * *

If state capture is a process, not an event, the United States still has time to halt its advance. The patterns are visible: the hollowing out of oversight, the politicization of investigative and prosecutorial functions, and the reshaping of public authority for private enrichment. Perhaps the lesson is that a descent into authoritarianism and rights violations goes hand in hand with the capture of the state for the financial as well as political gain of those in power. That was the case in South Africa under Zuma, in Guatemala under pre-2023 governments, and in Sri Lanka under the Rajapaksas; it is still the case with Bukele in El Salvador, as well as elsewhere.

Once control over bureaucracy, prosecution, and revenue is secured, recovery becomes far harder. Recognizing the warning signs now is not alarmist; it is the first act of prevention.

The post Is the U.S. Becoming a Captured State? A Comparative Perspective appeared first on Just Security.