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May 3, 2012

EDITORIAL: Curbing corruption a worthwhile crusade

TERRE HAUTE — If you are cynical about government, down to its most local levels, you may think it is overrun — or even controlled — by corruption.

A more generous view is that, even amidst partisan politics and personal agendas, most who hold office are anything but corrupt. Our experience, over many years and in many Indiana counties, is that honesty prevails and that the majority of government officials work toward the public good.  

But there’s probably more government corruption than any of us would like to think.

So, it comes as a welcome development that U.S. Attorney Joseph Hogsett — whose area is the southern two-thirds of Indiana — has initiated a Public Corruption Working Group, whose members include federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and even some administrative departments of government such as the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Overall, interagency sharing of information seems to be on the rise, a positive development that we are seeing more and more. Such sharing is fueled by the belief that results — no matter who primarily produced them — are more important than protecting turf and taking credit.

The working group’s goal is to investigate, prosecute and convict public officials who have violated the law in such ways as bribery, extortion, graft (defined by one source as “unscrupulous use of a politician’s authority for personal gain”), embezzlement, illegal drug activity, money laundering and human trafficking.

Hogsett — whose high visibility and assertive prosecutions have characterized his 18 months in the U.S. Attorney’s position — vows: “If you violate the public trust, we’ll find you.”

That may at first sound like bluster, except that Hogsett’s record in pursuing lawbreakers is impressive. He has been laudably aggressive in prosecuting on federal charges those who aided the shooter who callously took the life last summer of Terre Haute Police office Brent Long. Hogsett also has been stalwart in prosecuting local drug cases and other crimes. So the record supports Hogsett’s promise of action.

The public’s cooperation is imperative in ferreting out public corruption, which stays alive because of secrecy and deception among those power-wielding, corner-cutting, influence-peddling corruption merchants who seek to deprive the public of what the U.S. Supreme Court termed the “right of honest services.” To report suspected abuse, call a special hot line at (317) 229-2443.

Hogsett’s working group seems to be a move in the right direction to curb those abuses and make government more honest in its service to the public.

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