Trump promised Americans impartial justice. Is he delivering?
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
President Trump campaigned on a promise to undo the levers of the justice system that he said were weaponized against him.
His administration has gutted the Justice Department unit that investigates and prosecutes public corruption.
But since the beginning of Trump’s second term investigations into corrupt public officials have dropped nearly 90 percent.
Meanwhile, pardons of officials convicted of corruption have risen.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's consider this, where every day we go deep on one big news story. |
| 0:04.1 | Today, the U.S. Justice Department and public corruption. |
| 0:07.6 | While on the campaign trail in 2024, President Trump often cited the four criminal cases against him as evidence of a weaponized justice system. |
| 0:16.3 | The Biden regime's weaponization of law enforcement against their political opponent is something straight out of the |
| 0:23.5 | Stalinist Russia. And once he got into office, he promised to, quote, fix it. |
| 0:29.0 | We're turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization, and surrender to violent |
| 0:35.5 | criminals. And we're restoring fair, equal, and impartial |
| 0:39.7 | justice under the constitutional rule of law. But his administration has gutted the Justice |
| 0:45.8 | Department unit that investigates and prosecutes public corruption. Since the beginning of Trump's |
| 0:50.4 | second term, investigations into corrupt public officials have dropped nearly 90%. |
| 0:55.6 | Meanwhile, pardons of officials convicted of corruption have risen. |
| 1:01.1 | Consider this. President Trump promised Americans fair, equal, and impartial justice. |
| 1:05.5 | Is that what he's delivering? |
| 1:08.9 | From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. |
| 1:10.8 | It's Consider this from NPR. |
| 1:22.8 | NPR Justice correspondent Ryan Lucas has been following the changes the Trump administration |
| 1:27.3 | has made since Trump returned to office. |
| 1:29.9 | Ryan talked to me about it, along with White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. |
| 1:33.4 | Ryan, let me start with your recent reporting. |
| 1:35.3 | What exactly were you looking at to gauge just how public corruption is being handled and how that's changed? |
| 1:40.8 | Well, look, public corruption obviously is a big topic. |
| 1:43.2 | There are a lot of different aspects to it. So I focused on two things. One is presidential pardons. And so I went through all of |
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