Rooting out corruption in government is at the center of Saikat Chakrabarti’s campaign for Congress. And if elected next year, the 39-year-old former Silicon Valley engineer – now running to succeed Nancy Pelosi in her long-held San Francisco seat, says he would put it on display for every American to see.
As part of his anti-corruption agenda, Chakrabarti says he would introduce legislation to turn Donald Trump’s gilded White House ballroom into the “Smithsonian Museum on Corruption and Authoritarianism”.Looking ahead to a post-Trump Washington, Chakrabarti envisions filling the 90,000-square-foot structure, to be built in place of the now-demolished East Wing, with exhibits dedicated to the “modern dangers posed by the current wannabe dictator, the ongoing threat of authoritarianism, assaults on the rule of law, and the pervasive corruption of the billionaire class”.
“There’s going to have to be this moment of reckoning in the whole country after this Trump administration where we actually call out everything that just happened,” he said in an interview previewing the proposal, first shared with the Guardian. “We need to teach the history about how we got there and how we don’t get there again.”
Chakrabarti, who previously served as the chief of staff to congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is among the Democrats vying to represent the deep-blue district Pelosi will vacate when she retires at the end of her 20th term in January 2027. California state senator Scott Wiener has also entered the race, and other Democrats may join now that Pelosi has said she will not seek re-election.
Since launching his campaign in February, initially as a challenge to the 85-year-old Pelosi, Chakrabarti has positioned himself as a progressive disruptor, aiming to tap into the bubbling discontent with the party’s establishment. On the campaign trail, he has emphasized his tech background – a founding engineer at the $100bn payments processing company Stripe – as both a credential and a lens for tackling corruption. Drawing on his Silicon Valley experience and tech fluency, he says he would be well equipped as a member of Congress to hold powerful tech leaders accountable, particularly those with business before the government.
“I used to work as a programmer and so I actually have knowledge here,” he said. “That means when a tech CEO comes in front of me at a congressional hearing and they try to bullshit me, I’ll call their BS because I know that shit.”
While the Trump administration second-term actions have shocked ethics watchdogs, Chakrabarti argues that corruption in Washington, or the appearance of it, is a systemic problem facing both parties.
Americans have long believed that there is too much money in politics and that major political donors and special interests have too much power and influence over their elected officials. In surveys, Americans have pointed to government corruption as the biggest problem facing the US political system and named it as a major threat to democracy.
“When you have a situation where people believe their politicians are corrupt, people believe the institutions are corrupt, and there’s a complete failure of faith in our institutions, I think that is what allows someone like Donald Trump to get elected, saying he’s going to ‘drain the swamp,’” Chakrabarti said. “And so I think we have to reclaim the Democratic party as being a party that stands against corruption, especially in the face of a president who is probably the most corrupt president in our history, and certainly in my lifetime.”
The president’s $300m ballroom is, in Chakrabarti’s view, just one symbol of the “rampant corruption” and abuse of power that has marked Trump’s return to the White House. Other moves that have alarmed government accountability groups and presidential scholars include Trump’s acceptance of a luxury jetliner gifted by Qatar and the crypto memecoin $Trump launched days before his inauguration, as well as his purge of more than a dozen inspectors general and a government-wide effort to weaken federal watchdog agencies. Despite promises of transparency about the ballroom’s funding, a New York Times report found that donors were given the option to remain anonymous. Trump has insisted that “no government dollars” would be spent on the project.
In response to accusations of corruption, or when conflicts of interest concerns are raised, the White House has generally denied wrongdoing and framed criticism as unfounded and politically motivated. Trump often assails his political opponents as “corrupt”.
Restoring faith in US democracy, Chakrabarti says, requires political leaders willing to wage a sustained campaign against corruption. If elected, Chakrabarti has vowed to file a “discharge petition” on his first day in office to force a House vote on a stock trading ban, a proposal that is broadly popular with voters and has gained bipartisan traction in recent years.
He also calls for a publicly financed election system to democratize the process of running for office and to “end the role of big money in politics”. Chakrabarti is self-funding his campaign, and, like a growing number of Democratic candidates, has pledged to reject corporate and lobbyist Pac money.
“That’s one of the reasons why I think it’s important to have primary challenges all around the country where you have non-corporate backed Democrats who will make this an issue,” he said, encouraging more candidates to run on an anti-corruption platform. “For Democrats to have the moral standing on this issue going in 2028, we’ve got to call it out everywhere.”
