TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer Unveils Landmark Legislation Creating Nation’s First Independent Anti-Corruption Bureau

Washington, D.C. – Today, as part of his anti-corruption initiative, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) unveiled landmark legislation creating the nation’s first independent Anti-Corruption Bureau to root out corruption across the executive branch and hold presidents accountable if they weaponize power for private profit. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

The presidency is supposed to be a public trust. Trump has turned it into the single most profitable scam of his entire life. Trump has raked in at least $2.2 billion since taking office 18 months ago. Together, the Trump family has made at least $4 billion in that time.

How does a president and his family secure billions, billions in profits just after a year and a half in office? How? By exploiting the information, access, and influence that only the President of the United States can have.

There are endless examples.

The Trump administration approved a billion-dollar tungsten mining deal in Kazakhstan, backed by $1.6 billion in U.S. funds, in which Trump's sons held a stake and stand to profit. Trump's sons have made huge profits from a sprawling defense technology portfolio whose startups have won at least $3.2 billion in Pentagon contracts so far, with another $3.1 billion in options still on the table. If you dropped a pin on a world map at random, odds are you'd hit a country where the American president or his family has business interests. As reported in the New York Times, a company backed by Trump's sons is seeking to sell drone interceptor systems to Gulf nations under attack from Iran, a war started by Trump.

The conflicts of interest are just endless. And the scale of Trump's corruption is staggering. Trump's corruption isn't a victimless crime.

As Trump swims in the billions of dollars his family has made off the presidency, Americans are drowning in at least $3,100 in higher costs from the very same policies that are enriching Trump.

We see a new grift every day. But the scheme is always the same. Trump profits, Americans pay.

Trump solicits private donations to build his golden ballroom in exchange for favors, but somehow the American taxpayer still foots the bill for his palace. Back in 2024, the oil executive Harold Hamm went down to Mar-a-Lago and offered Trump a billion dollars for his campaign in exchange for killing the green energy industry. Now working families' electric bills are skyrocketing because Trump is blocking the cheapest and fastest source of energy to build and to get on the grid.

Trump receives a $400 million luxury jet from a foreign country; the most expensive bribe made to an American president in history. And yet Americans receive a billion-dollar invoice for his security upgrades to make the jet airworthy.

And what about tariffs? Trump changes his tariffs every time one of his billionaire friends calls him to ask for a carve-out, or he gets a gold-plated gift from a foreign dignitary.

Meanwhile, our small businesses have to deal with the chaos.

So, it's ridiculous. Everyone knows costs are high and corruption is rampant. We need to remind people that costs are high because corruption is rampant. The two are intrinsically related. America's crying out for Congress to crack down on this unprecedented corruption. And they want their leaders to reckon with how Trump corruption was possible in the first place so that we can make sure it never, never happens again.

Today, I'm pleased to announce new legislation that will do both. The Anti-Corruption Bureau Creation Act.

This bill is the biggest, boldest, and broadest proposal ever put forward to revitalize our anti-corruption institutions. I'm introducing this bill with my friends, Senators Padilla, Merkley, and Kim.

Our legislation has two aims. First, get Americans their money back. Second, make sure no one can steal from them again.

So let's start with the first issue since it's the most pressing to the American people. Just because Trump stole Americans' money doesn't make it his. Americans deserve to get that money back. My bill will create a private right of action that allows Americans to recover the money Trump and his family have taken from them. Our proposal mirrors the False Claims Act, which allows citizens to file lawsuits against people who defraud the government and receive part of the civil penalty if their case is successful.

Now the False Claims Act lets the public sue someone who is defrauding the government, but not someone connected to the government who is defrauding the public. Our bill would empower any person, including a state attorney general acting on behalf of the people of their state, to file a claim to recover money stolen from the public through government corruption.

The idea is simple. If Donald Trump or one of his lackeys, sons, or cronies uses government influence to steal from you, you deserve your day in court. Our bill has provisions that give priority to state attorneys general and to larger, more severe cases of corruption to ensure that frivolous suits don't get in the way of justice.

Our second objective, stopping it from happening again. It's not enough to get the American people their money back after the fact if our grifter in chief can just rob them again.

That's why the second goal of this bill is to put up guardrails to ensure that no president, this one or any other one, can ever turn public office into a private fortune again. Over the years, the corrupt chipped away at the guardrails Congress passed after Watergate to prevent a president from abusing the highest office in the land.

Trump saw those cracks and crevices. Instead of fixing them, he grabbed a sledgehammer. He installed a loyalist at the head of the Office of Government Ethics. Trump fired the Senate-confirmed U.S. Special Counsel, a role tasked with investigating corruption in the federal government, and replaced him with a MAGA acolyte. He has also completely neutered the Federal Election Commission, which Congress created to police the rampant corruption imposed by Watergate.

My bill would establish a new independent Anti-Corruption Bureau that strengthens all the guardrails Trump has weakened and place them all under one roof.

The sum of these agencies is much greater than the parts. This new bureau is one where these institutions work in symbiosis, strengthening each other and eliminating barriers between them which often got in the way. It replaces a broken patchwork of watchdogs, none of which were built for this moment, with one powerful anti-corruption agency ready to act anywhere, anytime corruption strikes.

The Bureau would have subpoena power to give it real investigatory strength, meaningful enforcement authority, and the ability to disgorge, disgorgement’s very important, all ill-gotten gains. The Bureau is a one-stop shop to both catch the corruption and make them pay up. A seven-member body nominated by the President with the advice and consent to the Senate would lead the Bureau, three members per party, with the requirement for a non-partisan seventh member.

Our Anti-Corruption Bureau isn't mere reorganization. We are giving the Bureau real independence from the President, real insulation from partisan politics, and real teeth to hold the corrupt accountable. Let me explain how.

Let's say Congress tries to defund the agency. The Bureau has a self-sustaining funding source to guarantee its independence, much like the Federal Reserve.

What if Trump tries to commandeer the Bureau to go after his political opponents? This would come at a steep price. Our bill explicitly prohibits weaponizing the Bureau in statute. Violate the prohibition and you could end up with a large fine or jail time.

Let's say Trump tries to dismantle the Bureau by purging its commissioners. Nope. Won’t work. If the president tries to remove a commissioner, our bill requires a panel of judges to appoint a temporary replacement to ensure the Bureau never loses a quorum. No president can fire their way out of this agency. The Bureau can do its work without fear of retaliation from the powers that be.

Defanging these watchdogs shouldn't have been possible in the first place. A watchdog that depends on the goodwill of the person it's supposed to restrain is not any watchdog at all.

So, in conclusion, this bill is just common sense. A basic, straightforward way to make sure all facets of government serve the people and no one else.

Now, I'm not going to pretend this legislation is a panacea, it's not, but it's a big important first step at a time when the public is calling on Congress to act. We'll fight for as long as it takes to make this bill law because this issue is bigger than Donald Trump.

Trump has created obnoxious new ways to undo government ethics that no one ever imagined the president would attempt. But picture if our next president is an even more devious or competent crook. The bill isn't just about this moment. It's about restoring Americans’ trust in government long term. Don't underestimate how disgusted certain Republicans are by this corruption. I expect many of them will welcome this type of legislation.

Now throughout our history, when corruption has reared its ugly head, especially after the biggest scandals, Americans didn't look away. We rose up. We responded. And we often did so in a bipartisan fashion.

When the spoils system led to a widespread corruption and incompetence in federal agencies. Congress created a competitive civil service.

When the 1904 election was marred by a corporate fundraising scandal, Congress barred corporations and national banks from contributing money to federal campaign.

When the Teapot Dome scandal gripped Washington, Congress gave itself greater power to police corruption.

And when the Watergate scandal exposed a re-election strategy built on political espionage, illegal campaign money, and a criminal cover-up run out of the Oval Office, Congress responded with a flurry of activity, setting up new ethics and campaign finance agencies and establishing new rules meant to restore trust in government.

Vice President Vance recently opined that “if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story.” He was sadly correct; you want to know why? Because the scope and scale of Trump's corruption dwarfs anything we have seen in American history. Nixon's Watergate burglars acted in the dead of night. Trump's corruption is happening in broad daylight. No president has ever, ever come close to this level of self-dealing and self-enrichment.

When Trump and his family make $4 billion off the presidency in just 18 months, the American people demand that we respond. Americans are demanding we go back to a government that's had some honor and some decency. This legislation tells them we hear them. And that we're going to fight for them with the strongest measures ever proposed.

That means clawing back billions, siphoned off by Trump, his family, his cronies. Standing up an Anti-Corruption Bureau with authority, independence, and resources to enforce the law without fear or favor. We need to go further. We need to recognize why Trump's promise to drain the swamp resonated with voters a decade ago. They correctly sensed how Washington works for the people who can pay for it. And not for everyone else. Trump took that suspicion, turned it into a certainty with his endless grifting.

If we're going to get Americans to trust in government again, it won't be enough to drain the swamp only to let the next con man fill it back up further down the line. Now, maybe it's fitting that we're here just a couple of blocks north of Constitution Avenue. Hundreds of years ago there was an open sewer, where this street now sits. A putrid canal funneled all the city's waste into the swamp around the Potomac. The stench got so bad that the community did more than just drain it. They filled it in. They paved it over. And they built something stronger on top.

That's the task ahead of us. We're going to bury corruption for good and lay the foundation for a more ethical government. Our work is going to touch on a lot more than a single fetid sewer. We're going to flush out the corruption that one of the most venal individuals in our nation's history has unleashed in every corner of the federal government.

This bill is where we begin.

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