Opinion - From the courthouse to the White House: How corruption becomes routine

A young Northwestern legal-clinic lawyer recalls a 1970s Cook County judge who openly demanded kickbacks (“CBR attorney”), briefly jailed his client when the lawyer refused, and was later convicted in the federal Operation Greylord probe.
The piece argues the courthouse corruption was normalized — everyone stayed quiet to avoid trouble — until the Justice Department finally intervened and prosecuted those involved.
The author likens that culture of complacent profiteering to President Trump’s large-scale self-dealing, noting it becomes harder to check when insiders and institutions look the other way (and raising concern about Trump’s pick for attorney general).