Alfonse D'Amato

Can government win back the public trust?

Posted

Almost every survey of Americans today shows a serious lack of trust in government. From the national to the local level, citizens doubt whether their government is putting the public interest first.
There’s good reason for this erosion of confidence. Take the ongoing investigation into Russia’s undue influence in the U.S. electoral process. Everyone agrees that foreign interference in our elections is a danger. No one wants to see our elections undermined. But now we find that much of the controversy may in fact have been precipitated by a deliberate partisan attempt to encourage this outside meddling in the 2016 presidential election. We’ve recently learned that the Russian dossier alleging serious charges against Donald Trump last year was the result of a hit job initiated by the national Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
If this supposedly salacious information on Trump was a dirty-tricks campaign, Special Counsel Robert Mueller should pursue the Democrat-Russia connection with the same vigor as his office has pursued the GOP-Russia connection.
And Congress is also right to take notice again of another Clinton-Russia connection that was far more serious in nature, and potentially damaging to American national security interests. Imagine the outcry we would hear today if the Trump administration allowed the sale of a critical uranium mine to a Russian company with ties to the Kremlin. The press would be howling that this was proof that Trump was in Vladimir Putin’s pocket, and that he was rewarding a dictator for his supposed support in the election.
Well, the U.S. government did approve the sale of a uranium mine to Russians, but it was under the watch of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who signed off on the deal even though it was seriously questioned as a potential threat to U.S. security. Interestingly, the FBI director at the time was none other than Mueller. Now, uranium isn’t a trifling commodity to allow foreign interests to control. If it falls into the wrong hands, it can too easily find its way into the nuclear weapons of adversaries like Iran — with which Russia has a nuclear program relationship — or worse, a rogue state like North Korea that is regularly threatening to attack the U.S.

How did this questionable uranium deal take place? It seems that Clinton was being particularly solicitous to Russian interests at the very time the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton were directly benefiting from Russian money. The Clintons protest that there was no relationship between Bill’s dealings with Russia and the decision to allow a critical defense asset to slip into Russian control, but the American public has every reason to question that assertion, and to demand that this transaction be fully investigated.
But let’s not just make sure that Hillary Clinton is held to account for her official actions. The same standard should apply to the current administration, too. A company that just happens to be headquartered in the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke won a $300 million no-bid contract from Puerto Rico’s power authority to rebuild the island’s electrical grid, which was destroyed by recent hurricanes.
This tiny company somehow managed to position itself to win this lucrative contract over a consortium of utility companies with extensive post-disaster rebuilding experience. The Puerto Rican agency that awarded the contract has a long history of mismanagement and corruption that left the island’s electrical system particularly vulnerable to destruction in hurricanes. And because Puerto Rico is essentially bankrupt, this $300 million contract would have been funded by U.S. taxpayers if the governor of Puerto Rico hadn’t pulled the plug on the deal last weekend. Now a fair bidding process should take place and, if necessary, heads should roll in the U.S. government.
Unfortunately, the government trust problem doesn’t stop in Washington. It finds its way down to other levels of government. In Long Beach, a developer was on the verge of receiving a $129 million tax windfall to build two towering 17-story monstrosities on a prized location along the city’s boardwalk. Only after concerned citizens and a few courageous local officials uncovered this scandal was the project halted.
On whatever level, the best remedies for political distrust are an informed public; fair, impartial investigations; and a willingness to set matters right no matter what the political consequences may be.

Al D’Amato, a former U.S. senator from New York, is the founder of Park Strategies LLC, a public policy and business development firm. Comments about this column? ADAmato@liherald.com.