‘District of Corruption’ Doesn’t Let Administrations Off the Hook

Almost every politically engaged person to the right of center recognizes the unprecedented level of corruption in the Obama administration. Honest leftists must also admit to it. Sometimes it seems that one scandal emerges only to distract us from the previous one. It is almost impossible to remember all of them. Fortunately, Judicial Watch has put together a documentary entitled District of Corruption, which compiles many of the major scandals to aid in our recollection.

Those at Judicial Watch, though, do not confine themselves to criticizing only the Obama administration’s corruption, nor even do they focus solely on Democrats. Following a title sequence that is clearly a homage to House of Cards, they dive right into the scandals of the Clinton administration and pull no punches in their evaluation of the Bush administration, before moving on to the current administration. The most time is spent here, because though the groundwork purportedly had been laid in Washington in the 16 years prior, the level of corruption in the Obama administration is a whole different ball game.

Let us begin, however, in the 1990s, with Clinton and his ilk. Clinton and company ran the White House “like a mob boss,” trading favors with supporters and compiling an enemies list complete with FBI files on numerous people, including those in the previous George H. W. Bush administration. Furthermore, criminals who were friendly to the administration – most famously Mark Rich – were pardoned by Clinton before he left office. The pardons were not subject to the normal review process.

The Bush administration, District of Corruption argues, was not prone to outright criminality. Instead, secrecy was the modus operandi. Many things were kept under wraps for reasons of national security, a justification which, if true, is often legitimate. The complication, of course, is that it is impossible for the public to know which secrets are truly necessary for national security. The Bush administration also dropped any investigation into Clinton administration wrongdoing to appear less partisan, robbing the public of having anyone involved in scandals brought to justice.

It is the Obama administration that draws the wrath of Judicial Watch most intensively. The preponderance of District of Corruption’s runtime is devoted to exposing the “Chicago Way” of favor-trading, corruption and gangster government. From unelected czars who are not subject to open records logs to the lack of access to White House visitor logs, the administration has promised transparent and accountable government and delivered exactly the opposite.

District of Corruption provides the details of the numerous ways in which the administration poured taxpayer dollars down the drain with few discernible results, from TARP to Solyndra to shovel-ready jobs. The Fast and Furious scandal is recounted from the ridiculous and unprecedented policy to the Justice Department’s lack of transparency and cooperation. Newsbusters.org provides background into the outrageous Fast and Furious scandal:

In 2009, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) launched “Operation Fast and Furious,” which permitted thousands of guns to be illegally sold in the hope of tracking the weapons as they made their way up the ranks of Mexican drug cartels. In December 2010, one of those weapons was used to kill U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

In early 2011, even as top administration officials were denying the existence of the gunwalking program, then-CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson talked to ATF whistleblowers who exposed the truth. It is “a scandal so large,” Attkisson relayed on the February 23, 2011 Evening News, “some insiders say it surpasses the shootout at Ruby Ridge and the deadly siege at Waco.”

Judicial Watch also shines a light in particular on vote fraud, one of the Obama administration’s most staggering transgressions. First the audience is treated to a brief history of ACORN and their attempts to get people to strike and go on welfare. But perhaps the most audacious corruption was the blatant political use of the Justice Department, who demonstrated a complete lack of scrutiny of voting rolls, completely ignoring the rule of law in allowing illegal immigrants to vote, and throwing out cases against the Black Panthers for voter intimidation.

Clearly the media is not doing its job exposing corruption in Washington, perhaps, the documentary suggests, because they don’t want to lose their access to the people at the top. It is up to us and organizations like Judicial Watch to spread the word. At less than 70 minutes, Culture of Corruption packs a lot of information into an accessible runtime and now it’s being released to iTunes. Buy it, download it, watch it and share it, and keep the pressure on government to be accountable to the people. As Judicial Watch’s motto attests, “No one is above the law.”