Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite

The Crannied Wall

Schweizer opens with Joe Biden, arguing that the image of a modest, straight-talking man from Scranton hides a family that has profited from his office. The title borrows from Tennyson's poem about a flower in a crannied wall, which Schweizer uses as a metaphor for hidden complexity beneath a simple surface. He defines corruption broadly: not only bribery, but using political power and proximity to generate private gain for oneself and one's family, often in legal gray zones.

The most telling examples involve Biden's son and brother. Hunter Biden joins the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, earning as much as $83,333 a month despite no energy or Ukraine expertise, soon after his father becomes the administration's point man on Ukraine. James Biden joins HillStone International as it pursues a contract to build 100,000 homes in Iraq, with no construction background, and the Biden name is cited as an asset.

Schweizer also sets out his method: cross-referencing financial disclosures, corporate records and timelines to show that windfalls follow political roles. He says the media have largely ignored these patterns, and that the chapter's pattern of family benefit points to a structural problem rather than coincidence, with no fewer than five family members said to benefit.

He warns that the politician whose family is given deals is no different from the one who receives them himself.

Kamala Harris

Schweizer argues that Harris, as San Francisco District Attorney and California Attorney General, used prosecutorial discretion to favor allies and donors. His lead example is OneWest Bank, led by Steve Mnuchin. Her own staff recommended a civil enforcement action over foreclosure violations, yet she declined to prosecute, and Mnuchin and his associates later became significant donors to her campaigns. Schweizer presents the sequence as prosecutorial decisions that line up with donor interests.

He also challenges her reputation as a progressive reformer. Her Back on Track program for first-time drug offenders won praise, but Schweizer questions how it worked in practice. He says her office fought to preserve convictions even when evidence of misconduct emerged, such as a crime lab technician who stole drug evidence, and appealed a judge's order to release potentially affected defendants.

Willie Brown is central to the story. Schweizer says he appointed Harris to two state commissions, the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the California Medical Assistance Commission, while they were in a relationship. He also covers her handling of the Catholic Church abuse scandal, mortgage settlements and her treatment of tech donors, concluding that her tough-prosecutor image does not survive scrutiny of decisions involving allies.

Joe Biden

Schweizer returns to Biden to widen the lens from Hunter to his brothers. He argues that the pattern is systematic: Joe opens political doors and relatives walk through them financially. James Biden joins HillStone International in 2010, with no construction experience, and the firm wins a $1.5 billion Iraq housing contract while Joe is the administration's point man on Iraq. Executives cite his connections as an asset.

Frank Biden gets attention too. He becomes involved with Mavericks in Education Florida, a for-profit charter school management company, in Joe's first year as vice president. Schweizer says Frank traded on his brother's name, and the company drew public money despite questions about its academic performance and finances. Frank is also linked to a Costa Rica renewable energy project seeking financing from the government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

On Hunter, Schweizer revisits Burisma, where Hunter earned about $83,000 a month, and the Chinese fund BHR, which received its license shortly after Hunter flew to Beijing on Air Force Two in December 2013. He notes Biden's boast about threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees until prosecutor Viktor Shokin was fired. Schweizer concedes no charges have been filed, but calls the arrangement a legal yet corrosive monetization of public office.

Cory Booker

Schweizer portrays Cory Booker as a politician whose image as a reformer and champion of the poor masks a career of rewarding friends and donors. He argues that Booker's rhetoric about inequality is contradicted by financial arrangements that enriched a small circle of insiders, and that Booker used his time as Newark mayor to build wealth and connections that outlasted the job, often at the expense of the residents he claimed to serve.

Much of the case rests on Booker's ties to Silicon Valley and finance. Schweizer describes Waywire, a video startup in which Booker held equity while mayor, raising conflict-of-interest questions. He also scrutinizes a $30 million Goldman Sachs social impact bond for Newark's schools, arguing it benefited Goldman while being presented as philanthropy. Booker's mayoral powers over contracts and real estate development, he says, favored connected developers.

Schweizer treats Booker's stunts, such as living on food stamps and shoveling snow, as marketing built to win national attention. He extends the argument to the Senate, where donors from finance, technology and pharmaceuticals met favorable positions on drug pricing and regulation. Booker, he says, links leveraging power for friends with ambition for his own career, and the money meant for schools was often diverted.

Elizabeth Warren

Schweizer argues that Elizabeth Warren's brand as a crusader for the little guy against corporate power does not match her record. He says her corporate legal work provided the bulk of her legal income, and that she kept taking lucrative work for major companies even as she presented herself as a consumer advocate. Her campaigns, he adds, have been funded by donations from corporate law firms that represent the firms she criticizes.

The chapter's key example is Travelers Insurance, where Warren helped the company limit asbestos liability, potentially reducing compensation for victims. Schweizer also cites her work for LTV Steel, where she helped reduce benefits owed to retirees, and for Dow Chemical. Her fees ran to hundreds of thousands of dollars, which he contrasts with her public rhetoric about corporate greed.

He also questions her real estate dealings and her claims of Native American heritage. Warren and her husband bought foreclosed properties in Oklahoma at rock-bottom prices and flipped them, even as she wrote about victims of the housing bust. Schweizer says she listed herself as Native American in a directory used for diversity hires, which made her a rare find for the University of Pennsylvania, giving her professional advantages.

Sherrod Brown

Schweizer examines Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, who presents himself as a champion of workers and a foe of Wall Street and lobbyists. He argues that the reality is more complex than that of a conventional progressive. Brown has received heavy support from labor union political funds, and Schweizer notes that he also took substantial donations from financial interests, which sits uneasily with his anti-corporate message.

A striking thread concerns Brown's brother, who pursued class-action lawsuits against targets ranging from dentists to vaccine companies. Schweizer argues Brown has seemed to use his political office to help clear the litigation path for those cases by pushing legislation or federal actions that would benefit them. He also points out that Brown described himself to voters as a farmer in his first campaign, even though he launched it as a Yale senior.

Schweizer also looks at Brown's household finances, including his wife, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Connie Schultz. He argues that investments and property dealings sat uneasily with Brown's populist speeches and committee roles, and that Brown's trade and banking positions did not always match his image. The overall claim is soft corruption: not bribery, but a populist brand covering gradual personal advantage drawn from political position.

Bernie Sanders

Schweizer argues that Bernie Sanders, who presents himself as an outsider fighting a corrupt establishment, has run a political operation that benefits family and loyalists. He says there are serious financial mysteries swirling around Sanders, concerning both his own wealth and the funds pouring into his movement, and that Sanders has close, mutually beneficial ties to powerful financial figures that belie his David-versus-Goliath image.

The central case is Burlington College under Sanders's wife, Jane. The college borrowed about $10 million to buy land from the Catholic Diocese of Burlington, and Schweizer says Jane claimed nearly $2 million in confirmed donations to secure the loan. The college closed in 2016, and federal investigators looked into possible bank fraud, though no charges were filed. Schweizer says college resources went to the family, as campaign money did.

He also describes campaign money flowing to vendors with ties to Sanders's circle, including Revolution Messaging, which received tens of millions from the 2016 campaign, and to a company run by his stepdaughter Carina Driscoll. He notes Sanders's lakefront vacation home and his millionaire status, and covers Sanders's praise for Soviet, Nicaraguan and Cuban governments, arguing that his populism masks self-dealing.

Amy Klobuchar

Schweizer argues that Amy Klobuchar's image as a tough, principled prosecutor and pragmatic senator is at odds with her record. As Hennepin County Attorney from 1999 to 2006, he says, she was lenient toward juvenile offenders and declined to charge police officers in fatal and use-of-force incidents, which mattered later when she positioned herself as a criminal justice reformer. He also sees political calculation in the cases she chose to bring.

In the Senate, Schweizer says Klobuchar has quietly built a legislative record that distributes economic benefits to favored, politically connected businesses. From the Commerce Committee and the antitrust subcommittee, which he calls ground zero for corporations seeking merger approval, she sits at the crossroads of corporate interests. He argues that her antitrust and consumer-protection rhetoric often outpaced her votes, and examines her husband's legal work for possible conflicts.

Schweizer also covers her management style, citing high staff turnover and a former colleague's complaint that her hiring favored candidates who support her ambitions. He cites donor ties in agriculture, finance and pharmaceuticals. The conclusion is that she is a politician who masters the appearance of accountability, serving the connected while insulated from scrutiny, in a form of corruption that is legal but corrosive.

Eric Garcetti

Schweizer portrays Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti as a progressive reformer on the surface who runs something like a classic political machine. He argues that Garcetti's machine looks like Tammany Hall in Ray-Bans: sleek and sophisticated, but at its root a machine that leverages power for money. He notes that his father, Gil Garcetti, was the famed district attorney, and that Garcetti's campaign finance chair was a Sony executive.

The core argument concerns real estate. In Los Angeles, the mayor and other officials can make developers rich through zoning changes, waivers and other benefits. Schweizer says developers who gave to Garcetti's campaigns, political committees or ballot measures he backed later received variances, density bonuses or approvals. Nonprofits and committees, he adds, let donors give less transparently than through direct campaign contributions.

Schweizer also points to Rick Jacobs, whose roles he describes as gateways between favor-seekers and the mayor's own political and personal ambitions. He says billions of dollars for homelessness, including Measure HHH, flowed to politically linked contractors and nonprofits with little accountability, and that Garcetti's national ambitions shaped his governing. Each deal might be explained away, Schweizer says, but the pattern reveals a self-serving use of public office.

Conclusion

Schweizer pulls the book's findings into one thesis: the progressives profiled, who claim the purest motives in their quest for greater power, have used office to enrich themselves, their families and associates while presenting themselves as defenders of ordinary people. He says this is a systemic problem, not a few bad actors, and that it is often legal or operates in gray zones, which makes it harder to prosecute than bribery.

He describes recurring mechanisms: relatives placed in lucrative positions, sweetheart deals for spouses and siblings, nonprofits used as financial conduits, and the revolving door between government and the private sector. Family members serve as proxies, giving politicians plausible deniability. Schweizer faults weak ethics rules, loophole-ridden disclosure laws and oversight bodies, and says the media scrutinize progressive politicians less rigorously than others, creating an asymmetry of accountability.

He closes with an appeal for reform: stronger disclosure rules that cover family members, stricter limits on relatives' business activity, and more powerful independent oversight. Reform is hard, he admits, because the beneficiaries are the ones who would vote on it. His broader warning is that the more power accumulated, the more likely it is exploited, and that voters should ask why anyone should be trusted with more power when they cannot be trusted with what they have.