Profiles in Corruption

If you want to understand how modern American politics fuses idealistic rhetoric with hidden networks of money and favors, Peter Schweizer gives you a compelling lens: the metaphor of the crannied wall. Borrowed from Robert Penn Warren, the phrase suggests that the public face of a politician—the flower—draws nourishment from hidden roots in finance, family, and patronage. Schweizer invites you to stop admiring the flower and start digging into the crannies of money.

The architecture of modern power

Behind every political slogan lies a network of relationships—donors, family ventures, nonprofits, and law firms—that shape decisions invisibly. Schweizer argues that contemporary progressives, despite reformist rhetoric, often exemplify this entanglement. Figures like Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Elizabeth Warren each promise to strengthen government to protect citizens, yet their histories show that concentrated power produces more “crannies” where influence can take root. You can think of this book as an anatomy of those roots.

Schweizer doesn’t claim that all progressives are uniquely corrupt. Instead, he shows that politicians who advocate expanding federal and state power create additional leverage points for donors and allies. Every new agency or regulation enlarges a zone where private actors can lobby, petition, or capture advantage. The paradox, he says, is that anti-corporate rhetoric often conceals relationships with corporations, unions, and consulting firms that profit from policy-driven subsidies or access.

The investigative blind spots and media failures

The book criticizes modern journalism for reducing politics to spectacle—poll numbers, personalities, and tweet reactions—while neglecting slow investigations into donor networks. Schweizer reminds you that transparency without understanding patterns is useless. When reporters chase horse-race narratives around Trump or campaign optics, they miss subtle flows like party-committee money rerouted from Wall Street donors to populist candidates who disavow corporate cash. This blindness lets complex corruption persist because the roots aren’t traced far enough.

How ordinary corruption scales with power

Schweizer distinguishes between petty ethical lapses—such as a mishandled email server or small campaign favor—and systemic influence systems, where foundations, family businesses, or nonprofit funds funnel millions under the banner of charity or progress. The Clinton Foundation and the Marc Rich pardon are used as early examples of how small favors mature into major leverage. Similar scaling occurs in examples across this book: book sales funneled through campaigns, behested payments in Los Angeles, and opaque ad-buying LLCs during elections.

What the metaphor teaches you

The “crannied wall” isn’t just an image; it’s a diagnostic tool. When you examine a politician’s actions, trace the visible decisions—appointments, earmarks, contracts—backward through the cracks to see who nourished them. You’ll often find recurring patterns: spousal law firms, donor-linked nonprofits, family consultancies, and later legislative decisions favoring those networks. Schweizer gives you checklists: follow donors, scrutinize staff and family ties, test the match between rhetoric and conduct.

Key reflection

When a reformer demands more power to fix systemic injustices, ask whose interests that expanded power will feed. In government as in biology, growth without oversight grows hidden roots first.

You walk away with a clear method: map rhetoric to resources. Schweizer’s metaphor teaches you how to look beneath charisma and progressivism to the soil of influence—and reminds you that every wall of power, once cracked, exposes roots gripping far deeper than the slogans above suggest.

Across chapters on Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, and others, Schweizer identifies a recurring pattern he calls leverage—the conversion of public authority into private gain through family, donors, or selective enforcement. You see the pattern emerge regardless of geography or position: prosecutorial discretion, family investment ventures, city contracts, or consulting retainers.

Discretion as power

You learn how Kamala Harris’s prosecutorial discretion shaped outcomes that favored allies—from dropping vice cases involving Willie Brown–linked club owners to withholding church records that shielded reputation-sensitive institutions. Similar leverage appears when Harris’s office avoided action against Herbalife—whose scrutiny might have affected her husband’s law firm clients. For Schweizer, discretion is a test of ethical stewardship: who benefits from the choices not made.

Family networks and global opportunity

Joe Biden’s example expands the lens beyond local discretion. His family forms what Schweizer calls a business model of proximity: relatives repeatedly entering ventures that overlap with foreign interests looking for political access. Hunter’s BHR investment with Chinese state entities, Burisma’s Ukrainian gas payments, and ties to CEFC or Kazakh oligarchs show how global finance meets domestic influence. Schweizer’s challenge to you isn’t about illegality—it’s about ethics of proximity and perception. When powerful families transact with state-linked investors, the line between diplomacy and self-interest blurs.

Local machines and celebrity power

Cory Booker’s story demonstrates how local machine politics adapt to celebrity and tech money. Newark’s redevelopment drew Silicon Valley donors through the Zuckerberg gift, which then paid consulting firms and campaign allies rather than classrooms. His aides later morphed into Mercury Public Affairs lobbyists representing clients under his Senate jurisdiction. The shift from idealist mayor to celebrity senator shows you how fame amplifies old patronage mechanisms.

The key pattern to spot: authority attracts deals. When family, staff, or donors profit after proximity to a public office, you’re witnessing leverage—regardless of party or ideology.

By synthesizing these examples, Schweizer urges you to treat political influence like a marketplace. The price isn’t paid in cash alone, but in discretion, publicity, and future access. The more power someone commands, the more valuable their silence, friendship, or endorsement becomes.

Schweizer’s investigation leads you to the plumbing beneath campaign finance—the shadow channels that move money invisibly through nonprofits, PACs, and shell LLCs. These entities legally enable fundraising and messaging but often serve as reservoirs where accountability evaporates.

How shadow channels form

Nonprofits such as the Sanders Institute or Garcetti’s Mayor’s Fund act as hybrid vehicles: officially charitable or educational but used to maintain donor relationships and finance political causes indirectly. The Mayor’s Fund, for instance, collected more than $30 million in behested payments from corporations doing business with Los Angeles—donations that would have been illegal campaign contributions. Meanwhile, Sanders’s post-campaign organizations struggled with inconsistent filings and salaried family directors, highlighting how blurred governance masks control.

Opaque intermediaries and media buys

One of the book’s most striking examples is Old Towne Media LLC—a mysterious Virginia house-linked firm that handled over $83 million in ad buys for Sanders’s campaign. Standard commission rates imply multi‑million‑dollar earnings, yet public disclosures reveal almost nothing about ownership. When insiders occupy vendor chains or family members handle campaign media, you should recognize how legal structures can quietly funnel wealth within political networks.

Party committees and fungibility

PACs and party committees multiply the problem through fungibility. Large donors contribute to umbrella committees like the DSCC Majority Trust, which then redistribute funds to candidates—including those claiming not to accept corporate money. This system lets politicians maintain moral distance while benefiting financially, complicating transparency. Schweizer’s warning is pragmatic: if money can change shape as it moves—becoming committee support, event sponsorship, or nonprofit gifts—you must track the entire flow, not just campaign checks.

Lesson

Shadow channels legalize influence. If accountability reform ignores nonprofits and shell entities, true donor power remains invisible even in full campaign disclosure records.

You learn to ask not only “Who gave?” but “Where did the money sleep?”—in PAC accounts, foundations, or LLCs that deflect sunlight while preserving access. In Schweizer’s view, sunlight must chase the shadow’s full length to illuminate modern corruption.

Money and policy meet most visibly in earmarks and donor-driven projects. Schweizer shows that progressives who condemn cronyism nonetheless sponsor legislation, allocate funds, or bless development projects that benefit contributors. This reciprocity defines what he calls the fungibility problem—the ease with which donor money becomes political access that then produces policy advantages.

From Vermont to Minneapolis

Bernie Sanders championed renewable energy grants and defense contracts that directly benefited friends and donors like David Blittersdorf of AllEarth Renewables. Sanders also supported bringing F‑35 fighter jets to his home state, arguing for jobs while partnering indirectly with Lockheed affiliates. Amy Klobuchar exhibited similar dynamics in Minnesota: hundreds of millions in light‑rail earmarks benefited her former law firm Dorsey & Whitney and the Pohlad family, whose real estate gained value from those public projects. Schweizer teaches you to read earmarks as fingerprints of influence rather than pure civic improvement.

Legislation aligned with donations

Timing often tells the story. Klobuchar introduced the Commercial Felony Streaming Act soon after clusters of entertainment‑industry donations arrived; she backed energy tax credits following contributions from Xcel Energy executives. The same sequence exists in Warren’s consulting work: her bankruptcy expertise produced paid advising for companies exploiting those very legal regimes. Schweizer shows you that proximity between financial benefit and legislative activity rarely happens by chance.

The municipal mirror

At city level, Eric Garcetti’s Los Angeles administration magnifies how donors convert payments into approvals. His Mayor’s Fund accepted behested donations from contractors and developers who later received favorable zoning or publicity. Deputy chief Rick Jacobs’s firm earned consulting fees from city‑linked PACs and campaigns, revealing how intertwined advisory roles can translate policy into profit.

The recurring equation: Donor → Access → Project → Profit. Change the names or cities, and the sequence repeats—proof that patronage adapts faster than ethics regulations.

For you, Schweizer’s examples urge skepticism of reform rhetoric detached from fiscal maps. Follow the timeline of money and votes; those tracks often reveal policy written in donors’ handwriting.

One of the book’s most human yet troubling themes is the use of family as a proxy for influence. Schweizer details how spouses, siblings, and children frequently convert proximity to power into commercial success—from Biden’s extensive family businesses to Warren’s daughter’s consulting firm and Sanders’s household nonprofits.

The Biden family pattern

Through Rosemont Seneca, Bohai Harvest, and partnerships stretching from Ukraine to China, Hunter Biden’s dealings overlap with his father’s diplomatic portfolio. Joe’s brothers, Frank and James, appear in real estate and contract ventures—from HillStone’s Iraq housing deals to solar projects in Costa Rica—often leveraging the familial name for credibility and financing. Schweizer’s insight: when public office opens doors abroad, those doors rarely close after official visits.

The Warren household

Elizabeth Warren’s family story intertwines policy design and private consulting. Her daughter Amelia’s Business Talent Group advised corporations receiving bailout funds, while Warren herself earned fees from companies exploiting bankruptcy rules she helped craft. Schweizer treats this as a revolving-door principle extended into the family sphere.

The Sanders example

Jane Sanders’s leadership at Burlington College and roles in campaign media buying illustrate how grassroots branding can coexist with private advantage. The college’s collapse and FBI inquiry, combined with campaign commissions to family-run firms, signal how proximity to political fame creates financial permeability. Schweizer doesn’t accuse direct criminality but insists that ethical scrutiny must expand beyond officeholders to their households.

Family is the most efficient conduit of political wealth: unregulated, hard to audit, emotionally shielded, and able to persist through generations.

For you, the practical takeaway is vigilance toward nepotistic ecosystems. When evaluating transparency, count how many relatives appear in contracts, boards, or nonprofits linked to public decisions. Schweizer’s message: power’s household form is often its most enduring.

Schweizer closes by confronting what he calls the progressive paradox: the tendency of reform movements to believe their intentions inoculate them from corruption. History proves otherwise. The more righteousness infuses rhetoric, the easier it becomes to rationalize privilege “for the greater good.”

Idealism meets incentive

The examples converge on a truth Milton Friedman famously articulated: concentrated power is not harmless just because well-intentioned people wield it. Sanders’s campaigns transformed moral indignation into lucrative advances and opaque expenditures; Warren’s anti–corporate message coexisted with elite consulting; Booker’s reformist image accompanied donor-boostered contracts; Harris’s justice narrative sometimes shielded allies. Schweizer’s use of progressive subjects simply dramatizes the universal susceptibility of power to self-justification.

Accountability over ideology

He invites you to judge leaders not by slogans but by stewardship: how they manage existing authority before asking for more. Transparency in disclosures, avoidance of lucrative speaking substitutes, rigorous publication of nonprofit data, and unbiased enforcement are standards for every official, regardless of ideology.

Your role as citizen

Schweizer cites Robert Caro’s maxim—"power reveals"—as a moral test. You are also implicated: voters tolerate, enable, or ignore the corruption they perceive. Reforms mean little unless citizens monitor how new concentrations of authority function. Expanding government may be necessary for certain policies, but it also multiplies the crannies where influence hides.

Final reminder

We get the government we tolerate. Every instance of unexamined power—whether in a mayor’s fund or a family business—echoes that civic choice.

In the end, Schweizer’s synthesis is less partisan exposure than civics lesson: without structural sunlight, even reform movements grow roots into the same soil of power they claim to uproot. Your task as reader is to apply the “crannied wall” test to all leaders who promise change—measure their transparency before granting more authority.