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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Lauren Gambino in Los Angeles

Former AOC staffer running for Pelosi’s seat promises to root out corruption – and Trump’s ballroom

a man and a woman walk outside
Saikat Chakrabarti and then-representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on 14 November 2018. Photograph: Pablo Martínez Monsiváis/AP

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 sq ft 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”.

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