Sen. Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat who serves as Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said on Saturday that President Donald Trump is “the most corrupt President in history” and that the Republican-led Congress is “too afraid to even criticize him.” Murray closed the message with a pledge that a Democratic Congress would “investigate the corruption and hold Trump accountable.” The declaration came 24 days before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress and the oversight powers that come with it.
Murray posted the message on X at 7:14 PM on Saturday, October 10, 2026. The post reads in full:
“This is the most corrupt President in history. He doesn’t even hide it, but this Republican Congress is too afraid to even criticize him.
A Democratic Congress will investigate the corruption and hold Trump accountable.”
What Murray Said
The post makes three distinct claims. The first is that Trump is the most corrupt president in American history. The second is that his conduct is open rather than concealed. The third is that congressional Republicans have declined to confront it. Murray tied all three to a single remedy: a change in which party controls Congress, which she said would bring investigations and accountability.
Murray, who has served in the Senate since 1993, did not name a specific incident in the post. It followed several weeks in which she and other Democrats criticized the White House over its use of federal money, its handling of a Justice Department settlement fund and its war spending. As Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee, she sits on the panel that writes the spending bills, including those that fund the Pentagon and the U.S.-Iran war effort.
The Taxpayer-Funded Ads
The most recent flashpoint came in late September, when four television ads praising Trump began airing ahead of the midterms. Democratic lawmakers said the White House had moved $20 million in Department of Homeland Security funds to pay for them. The spots ran during football games and other programming. One featured UFC President Dana White praising Trump, and another closely resembled an ad Trump used in his 2024 campaign.
On Tuesday, September 29, Murray and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding details. “We should not have to remind you that using government funding to create or air political ads like the ones that have been running over the last few days is illegal and a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars,” the senators wrote. They also said that “taxpayers need to be paid back for this theft, and everyone responsible needs to be held accountable.”
Trump reversed course on Monday, October 5, announcing on Truth Social that taxpayers would no longer pay for the ads and that he or his MAGA Inc. political action committee, which holds roughly $400 million, would fund them instead. Murray said the move was not enough. “This was historic corruption, and the president announcing he will illegally coordinate with a super PAC won’t cut it,” she said in an online statement. “Trump must refund the American people for these taxpayer-funded ads.” She added: “You can bet a Senate Democratic majority will investigate and deliver accountability.”
Not every Republican defended the spending. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said taxpayer dollars should not be used for the ads, and Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, who chairs the panel that oversees DHS funding, said public money should be used as intended. Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, took the opposite view. He called the ads appropriate and rejected a request to investigate them. Trump has not committed to repaying the federal money already spent.
A Pattern of Statements This Year
Murray’s Saturday post followed a series of similar accusations. On August 18, she criticized a plan to sell early access to Trump’s Truth Social posts. “There is no get-rich-quick scheme Trump won’t try,” she wrote on X. She called the arrangement “BLATANT CORRUPTION” and added, “We cannot let this crooked money grab go unanswered. I will push for accountability.”
In May, Murray questioned acting Attorney General Todd Blanche at a Senate subcommittee hearing a day after the Justice Department announced a settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the government. The settlement created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate people who say they were mistreated by federal authorities. Murray accused the top law enforcement official of helping Trump commit an “absurd” act of corruption. Blanche later said the fund was dropped because of court rulings. Trump then said he would push for legislation creating it if the Senate did not confirm Blanche as attorney general.
Murray has used similar language about the administration’s handling of spending approved by Congress. In a statement on Trump’s attempt at a “pocket rescission” of more than $800 million in funding, she said: “This is theft from the American people, plain and simple.” She added that Democrats had fought to include language in the recently enacted stopgap spending bill to prevent the administration from usurping Congress’s power, but that Republicans refused.
Her scrutiny has reached the war and defense budget as well. On May 12, her office announced she had questioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the Iran war, on what the release called “Trump’s Astronomical $1.5 Trillion War Budget,” and on spending priorities. Hegseth later told the Senate the war has cost $37.5 billion and asked for billions more.
Murray’s Record Going Back to Trump’s First Term
Murray’s concerns about Trump and corruption date to his first term. In 2017, after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, she called for a special prosecutor to look into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. In August 2018, after Paul Manafort’s conviction and Michael Cohen’s guilty plea, she cited “the growing cloud of corruption and criminal activities surrounding President Trump.” In 2019, after Trump’s admission that he had pressed Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, she called the conduct “gross corruption and completely outside of our democratic norms.”
Murray also voted to convict Trump at his first impeachment trial. In her closing remarks, she said it had become “undeniably clear the corruption we have learned so much about in recent months starts at the very top, with the President of the United States.” The Senate acquitted Trump in February 2020. No impeachment resolution from Murray appears in publicly available records this Congress. Under the Constitution, articles of impeachment originate in the House, and her stated approach this year has been investigations, demands for repayment and inspector general probes.
The Midterm Stakes
House Democrats are already planning for a majority. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said in September that “there is a cost to the American people of the out-of-control corruption,” as Democrats prepared a broad oversight agenda covering Trump, his family and his administration. Impeachment remains an option, though Democrats are expected to focus more on Cabinet members. Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., has already introduced seven articles of impeachment against Trump, one of them charging political corruption.
Prediction markets point toward the outcome Murray described. On Polymarket, traders put the odds of Democrats winning the House at 91%, against 9% for Republicans. The markets reflect trader sentiment rather than a poll, and the election is set for Tuesday, November 3. Murray’s pledge that “a Democratic Congress will investigate the corruption and hold Trump accountable” is, in effect, a promise about what Democrats would do with that majority. It would also mark the first time since Trump’s return to office that his administration faces subpoena-backed oversight from the opposition party.