Conservative historian and author Victor Davis Hanson is urging President Donald Trump to lead a crackdown on corruption in Washington. He said that effort has to include the president’s own administration.
Hanson, a senior contributor at The Daily Signal and author of a book on Trump and the MAGA movement, made the case in a video commentary released Tuesday.
He said corruption is on everyone’s mind and that hardly a day goes by without news of some new investigation, some warranted and some not. Hanson said he was using the term in its widest sense. It covers financial wrongdoing, but also the unethical behavior and personal attacks that he said have coarsened American society.
Hanson argued that conservatives cannot credibly point only to Democrats such as Hunter Biden, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Rep. Ilhan Omar.
He specifically raised Alina Habba, Trump’s former attorney. Hanson said he had held her in high regard but noted allegations that she obtained pardons or clemency from the Trump administration for people convicted of serious crimes.
Hanson also noted the recent shake-up at the White House, in which Susie Wiles, whom he said he respected as chief of staff, was moved to the political side of the administration.
He did not name other administration officials he believes are involved in wrongdoing. But he argued that the president should take the initiative.
Hanson said Trump should declare that his administration will be beyond suspicion of corruption. He suggested the president ask Congress to strengthen the bill associated with Pelosi that would bar members of Congress from trading stocks as insiders during their tenure. Trump could then sign an executive order applying the same rules, step for step, to the executive branch.
Hanson framed the issue as central to the MAGA movement itself. He said that movement, like the Tea Party before it, grew out of a reaction against aristocratic elites and corruption at the highest levels of government.
“It’s time to clean up the language, clean up the behavior,” Hanson said, also calling for an end to graft and what he described as obvious corruption.
His comments come at a difficult moment for Republicans, who lost control of both the House and the Senate in last week’s midterm elections.
Incoming House Democrats have already promised a wave of investigations into the administration, including Trump’s pardons, his White House construction projects and his family’s business dealings. The White House has warned that some of those probes could themselves cross legal lines.
Hanson is a longtime Trump defender and the author of the bestseller “The Case for Trump,” so his call adds weight to a growing conversation on the right about how the party should respond after its electoral defeat.
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