I don't know how close is "close", but I can point you to a litany of local political insiders just in my municipality who benefit enormously thanks to their proximity to power. The HISD Superintendent just got caught sending Houston money to a network of charter schools in Colorado that he has a personal stake in just for instance.

If you’re talking about white collar crime, you can make a lot of money that way very easily, but you’re also on borrowed time until someone else looks closely at the books.

Not when the person looking at the books is Ken Paxton. Then he simply declines to prosecute anyone who is on his team.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago

I'm not Texan, so unfortunately I can't really comment on that, but it does sound like a messy clusterfuck.

I'm not denying that having positions and influence can be used to make money, and even in legal ways, but you bet the backstabbing continues, at least in every situation I'm privy to.