The War Against White-Collar Crime: Elite Lawbreaking and the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol

The Final Report of the Select House Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6th Attack on the United States Capitol released in late 2022, contains a treasure trove of facts indicating that former President Donald Trump and others around him allegedly engaged in a number of crimes related to the insurrection and attempted self-coup. The unprecedented assault on the Capitol, federal and state indictments, and ongoing investigations provide an opportunity to both examine elite criminality and evaluate government response through the lens of white-collar criminology. This essay considers: 1) how government criminality and corruption are facilitated by rationales and excuses that deny effective social condemnation; 2) their political weaponization; 3) how they constitute part of a larger existential war against white-collar crime that seeks to normalize such lawbreaking; and 4) the inherent difficulties in researching, controlling, and preventing elite crime more generally.