What voters told the poll

Voters going to the midterm polls put government corruption second only to the rising cost of living among the issues that matter most to them, according to an October Harris poll conducted for the Guardian. Corruption ranked higher as a worry than either AI or immigration: 87% of respondents said it was a problem.

Among voters planning to cast ballots in the midterms, 65% described corruption as a "major problem". What they have in mind is specific, the polling suggests:

• •elected officials putting their own or their donors' financial interests ahead of the public
• •a greater share of respondents worried about this than about people obtaining health insurance on the sly

The administration's own fraud findings

The Trump administration has itself been publicizing fraud. Its most recent discovery, announced by JD Vance's anti-fraud taskforce, amounted to $40m defrauded from Snap. The administration also removed 760,000 people from Obamacare health coverage on grounds of fraud.

Speaking in Ohio, Vance accused such offenders of cheating schemes in which, he said, people "will steal from the mouths of hungry children in order to enrich themselves".

Trump's bounty and the enrichment allegations

President Donald Trump has invited the public into the fight, offering a 1% commission to anyone whose fraud tip leads to $1bn found. Of the allegations against Trump himself, Vance said: "I have not seen a single shred of evidence that he participates or sanctions in that corruption", adding: "this guy was a billionaire before he ever got into politics".

On the international measure, the US ranked 29th least corrupt on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index last year, below its standing in the final Biden year and down from 18th in 2016. Meanwhile, Trump reportedly made $2.2bn in his first year back in office, including $1.4bn from crypto. Cases compiled in the report include:

• •the SEC under Trump paused a fraud lawsuit against a crypto billionaire who had bought $40m of $Trump meme coins and invested $75m in another Trump crypto business
• •investigations were dropped into Coinbase, Ripple and Kraken, crypto companies that contributed to his campaign, and the justice department team investigating illegal uses of crypto was disbanded
• •a Vladimir Putin-connected oligarch financed a wedding party on a private island for Donald Trump Jr
• •Jared Kushner is cutting billion-dollar deals with rulers of countries where he conducts diplomacy for the US
• •the Qatari government gifted Trump a luxury jet, potentially violating the emoluments clause of the constitution
• •World Liberty Financial, the crypto company funded by the Trump and Witkoff families, received a secret $500m stake purchase from an investment firm tied to the UAE ruling family, soon before the UAE gained access to high-end American AI chips
• •former Puerto Rico governor Wanda Vázquez Garced and her alleged bribe-payer Julio Herrera Velutini were pardoned after Velutini's family gave a $50m deal to Alina Habba and donated $3.5m to Maga Inc Super Pac
• •the Pentagon lent more than $600m to rare earths startup Vulcan Elements three months after Donald Jr's firm 1789 Capital bought a stake in it
• •Powerus, a drone maker backed by Eric and Donald Trump Jr, sells drone interceptors to Persian Gulf allies of the US that are under attack by Iran

Two running inventories keep pace with the claims: the Democratic congresswoman Rosa DeLauro maintains a list of the ways Trump is enriching himself, his family and allies while in office, and a British researcher runs a public log that has logged hundreds of instances of corruption and abuse of office across Trump's last 21 months in the White House.

The White House response

The White House denies that the Trump family has ever engaged in any conflicts of interest, and denies granting pardons or clemency in exchange for political donations.