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Warren Unveils “Most Sweeping Set of Anti-Corruption Reforms Since Watergate”, TruthOut   Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams September 17, 2019  Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday unveiled a wide-ranging plan to combat corruption in U.S. politics with “big, structural change to fundamentally transform our government.”

The End Washington Corruption plan builds on legislation that the Massachusetts Democrat introduced last August, months before she announced her presidential campaign. Warren released the plan ahead of her Monday night speech in New York City, near the site of the tragic 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

“Today, I’m announcing a comprehensive set of far-reaching and aggressive proposals to root out corruption in Washington,” Warren wrote on Medium Monday. “It’s the most sweeping set of anti-corruption reforms since Watergate. The goal of these measures is straightforward: to take power away from the wealthy and the well-connected in Washington and put it back where it belongs — in the hands of the people.”

Warren directly targeted President Donald Trump with her Medium post. “Make no mistake about it: The Trump administration is the most corrupt administration of our lifetimes,” she wrote, highlighting tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, Supreme Court justices “hand-picked by right-wing extremist groups,” and key cabinet and ambassador posts the president has filled with former lobbyists and major donors.

“But these problems did not start with Donald Trump. They are much bigger than him,” Warren noted, emphasizing the need for broad, transformative change. “My plan lays out nearly a hundred ways that we can change our government to fix this problem — from improving public integrity rules for federal officials in every branch of government to ending lobbying as we know it, fixing the criminal laws to hold corrupt politicians to account, and ensuring our federal agencies and courts are free from corrupting influences.”

The plan has six broad goals under which Warren organized her proposals. The first goal is restoring public integrity — which, she argued, requires “rooting out financial conflicts of interest in Washington.” To achieve this, Warren would:

• End self-dealing in the White House by applying conflict of interest laws to the president and vice president;
• Disclose tax returns of federal candidates and officeholders to the public automatically;
• Force senior government officials to divest from privately-owned assets that could present conflicts of interest;
• Completely ban the practice of government officials trading individual stocks while in office;
• Shut down a raft of additional shady practices that provide opportunities for government officials to serve their own financial interests; and
• Immediately end the possibility of trading on access to insider political information.

As part of Warren’s effort to address the public’s lack of confidence in federal officials and institutions, she wants to “close and padlock the revolving door between government and industry.” Her proposals to achieve this are:

• Ban “golden parachutes” that provide corporate bonuses to executives for serving in the federal government;
• Restrict the ability of lobbyists to enter government jobs;
• Make it illegal for elected officials and top government appointees to become lobbyists — ever; and
• Restrict the ability of companies to buy up former federal officials to rig the game for themselves.

The White House hopeful would also work to curb the influence of corporations and powerful special interests on the U.S. justice system. Specifically, Warren calls for strengthening ethics requirements for federal judges and ensuring that Supreme Court justices are held to the same standard as judges in lower courts. She would also mandate the public dissemination of all federal judges’ financial reports, recusal decisions, and speeches and “close the loophole that allows federal judges to escape investigations for misconduct by stepping down from their post.”………. https://truthout.org/articles/warren-unveils-most-sweeping-set-of-anti-corruption-reforms-since-watergate/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=cea503c8-3faa-4731-ad8b-b83e698521c9