Our Public Officials Are Absolute Trash

Why does it seem like so many of our elected officials break their oaths with no repercussions? Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Why are lawyers holding public office allowed to break the law and violate their oaths of office? Why is any office holder allowed to clearly violate their oaths of office and still keep their jobs? Do oaths of office even matter anymore? Or are they just ceremonial words? They're just ceremonial words. Um, I, and, and I think that's a very sad state of affairs, but that's, that's what it is. We have, and it's not just the lawyers who hold public offices, I'm sure. Um, you know, the user knows here, so many politicians, they violate their own reporting laws. Oops, I forgot to disclose all my financial transactions. Oops. I was hiding the fact that I sold this stock that we were currently discussing. And all, like, they just do it all the time. Both parties do it all the time. Democrats and Republicans, it's a bipartisan fun fest up there.

But again, they're, they're doing it constantly and nobody gets in trouble. Like when they failed a report or they get busted, like not disclosing all of their financial transactions. Do you know what happens to them if they get punished at all? They get a $200 fine. That's it. If the punishment for a crime is a fine, then that crime only exists. That law only exists for the lower class. Another brilliant, uh, uh, quote I've heard in the past, if the punishment for a crime is a fine, then the law only exists for the lower class. That is what we're looking at with these people who violate their oaths of office. They can do whatever they want because they know the only people to hold them accountable are the people up there with them. See, that's the real problem. What we need is an independent government body that investigates these things and can come up with formal charges.

But as it stands right now, like suppose a member of the house or Senate violates the rules. So they have their own little ethics panel, and the ethics panel gets together, you know, they're colleagues and they decide whether or not this person did something wrong. And if they did something wrong, okay, then we'll find 'em, and that's it. And they move on. But usually it doesn't even get that far. And the reason for that, of course, is because most of them are doing the same things. So of course, we're not gonna hold Congressman X accountable because he could just turn around and say, well, well Congressman, why over here did the same thing? Why are we not doing it to him? Oh, and then this person did it too. Let's, they're not gonna do that. They're not gonna open the can of worms because they're all worms themselves. That's why that happens. And unfortunately, it's the culture in dc it's the culture in Congress, in the house, in the Senate. That's what it is, because we let them investigate themselves and they're sure never gonna hold one another accountable because next time the accountability could be coming for them. So, as I said, an independent government body needs to be the ones looking at this.