Recent corruption scandals across multiple continents, with all sorts of perpetrators, serve as a sad reminder that corruption is a ubiquitous hazard in politics. It can break out in any government, from any person, at any time. Why does corruption cling so closely to politics? Because politicians and their associates have the power to achieve the selfish desires that are found everywhere.

This week, two Ukrainian cabinet ministers have resigned after a 15-month anti-corruption investigation showed them at the center of a scheme to embezzle roughly $100 million from contracts designed to harden the country’s energy infrastructure against Russian attacks.

“It looks really bad in the eyes of our European and American partners. While Russians destroy our power grid, and people have to endure blackouts, someone at the top was stealing money during the war,” lamented Zelensky ally Oleksandr Merezhko. “Internally, this scandal will be used to undermine unity and stability within the country. Externally, our enemies will use it as an argument to stop aid to Ukraine.”

By betraying trust and derailing the good objectives of government, corruption possesses great destructive power.

Of course, no one is surprised when a corruption scandal breaks former Soviet state with corruption so notorious that even the sons of American vice presidents do business there to turn a corrupt profit. Corruption in Ukraine is so predictable that many members of the U.S. Congress have urged for greater oversight over how aid dollars are spent there.

But corruption is not confined to such contexts. Earlier this week, federal authorities arrested Dana Williamson, former chief of staff to California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Sean McCluskie, former chief of staff to then-U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, in a public corruption probe. After a three-year investigation, the Department of Justice accused the pair of stealing $225,000 from Becerra’s state campaign fund.

The incident also indicates that corruption is not the exclusive domain of government officials. Well-connected aides can be corrupt too.

In fact, political corruption goes beyond even electoral politics as such. Earlier this year, the Justice Department launched a fraud investigation into the Black Lives Matter movement, which raised over $90 million in donations during the fiery summer of 2020. Soon afterward, BLM cofounder Patrisse Cullors purchased a $6 million mansion in the Los Angeles area. Another activist, Sir Maejor Page, was sentenced in October 2024 for defrauding BLM donors of nearly half a million dollars that he intended to use for his own personal benefit. Even politics-adjacent activism can be swimming in so much money that it’s ripe for corruption.

Even the best oversight cannot eliminate corruption. Whether the corruption extends to the overseers themselves, or the corruption takes other forms (such as improbably profitable stock trading, or non-monetary gifts), those who want to cheat will often find a way to do so.

Such corruption will never profit in the end, because God is the final judge, and he sees all. But those who engage in political corruption aren’t thinking about God or the final judgment. They are simply thinking of the short-term gain. They have convinced themselves that they will not be caught, that what they are doing is okay, that everyone else is doing it. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Why does corruption cling to politics? Because man’s sinful heart is warped. They are “lovers of self” (2 Timothy 3:2) who “seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 2:21). This is not a Ukrainian problem or an American problem. This is not a Democrat problem or Republican problem or politician problem. This is a human problem. It just so happens that political power is quite a convenient tool for a person to use to accumulate for themselves whatever else they want.

This does not mean that good government initiatives are pointless. Anti-corruption statutes, inspector generals, and watchdog entities can and do have a role to play in restraining corruption. But we must be clear-eyed about what they can achieve. As long as man’s heart is warped by sin, corruption cannot be eliminated only restrained, deterred, and punished. Some governmental structures and cultural mores address this problem better than others. The American political system does a decent job, insofar as voting incentivizes politicians to turn their selfish ambition toward the public good (if only to get reelected), but it is not perfect.

This is why the Mosaic law prohibited bribery among public officials (Exodus 18:21), “For a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right” (Exodus 23:8). God has instituted government for the good of all, and that requires government officials to act for the good of all — not for their own benefit, or the benefit of their cronies.

King David modeled this principle in a campaign against the Philistines. When three of his mighty men fought their way through the enemy lines to draw a drink for the thirsty king, “he would not drink of it. He poured it out to the Lord 17 and said, ‘Far be it from me, O Lord, that I should do this. Shall I drink the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives?’” (2 Samuel 23:16-17). Such beneficent leadership reflects God’s rule over the world.

Of course, David presented a far worse example when he slept with Bathsheba and had her husband killed. Even the most godly leaders face the near-constant temptation to abuse their power for their own personal benefit. Even a king like David fell into the sins of adultery and murder. Given these facts, are we surprised that politics today never seems free from the taint of corruption?