Our Work
The Public Integrity Project raises the cost of corruption in America by suing the people, companies, and countries that seek to bribe government officials, as well as the government officials who seek to be bribed. This matters, because when corruption infects our economy, businesses succeed or fail, not on their merits, but on their proximity to power. When that same corruption infects our politics, leaders no longer represent the will of the voters, but the will of the rich elite. In short, corruption destroys democracy. By fighting corruption, we’re fighting to save democracy.
Our Strategy
Our legal approach is simple. Those who seek to corrupt government officials, and those who seek to be bribed, violate any number of criminal laws, such as bribery, wire fraud, and honest services fraud. These criminal statutes can be the predicate for civil lawsuits brought by people harmed by this corruption—customers, competitors, and investors—under civil RICO, unfair competition, and securities laws, among others.
This strategy raises both the legal and reputational cost of corruption. Lawsuits bring sustained attention to stories of bribery and graft that might ordinarily be lost in the rush of news. They make stories clear, create narratives, reveal new facts, and invite ongoing coverage of what otherwise might be a single story. This matters, because while there are many incentives for people and companies to engage in corruption right now, there are few forces on the other side, discouraging them from pursuing corrupt strategies. The Public Integrity Project’s litigation and media strategy does exactly that.
Learn more about our investigations and litigations below.
Lawsuit to unwind the illegal sale of TikTok
Donald Trump approved a sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to investors like MGX (which bought $2 billion of the President’s preferred cryptocurrency) and Oracle (whose chairman, Larry Ellison, is an ally of the President). Under the deal, Oracle can censor the content that it—and the President—doesn’t like. We’re suing to rescind the government’s approval of this illegal deal.
Trump inaugural committee investigation
The Public Integrity Project is investigating the Trump Inaugural Committee for acting as a slush fund through which companies donated money in exchange for having the government investigations, lawsuits, and criminal prosecutions against them dropped.
January 6 plaque litigation
Recognizing that the government’s corruption depends on rewriting the past, the Public Integrity Project is suing the Architect of the Capitol—an office within the United States Congress—for refusing to install a memorial to the officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021.