"Clean Hands" Reloaded: DOGE as a Weapon of Bureaucracy Destruction

But is it a good thing?

Elon Musk with the chainsaw that Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, presented to him. The DOGE operation is wreaking havoc on the US bureaucracy, just like some thirty years ago, the “Clean Hands” investigation shook the Italian government system.

In systemic terms, bureaucracy is a form of pollution: it produces nothing, and it is a burden on society. In addition, bureaucracy and corruption go hand-in-hand, creating an even larger societal burden.

We can also see bureaucracy as a form of entropy, and, as you know, entropy always wins. Like entropy, bureaucracy tends to grow, and attempts to rein in excessive bureaucracy often backfire because they are based on other forms of bureaucracy. Rules may be laid down to eliminate other rules, but the total number of rules still increases.

Yet, the entropy principle is valid only in a closed system. In an open one, it is possible to invert the trend. It can also work for bureaucracy when external forces are used to fight the monster. It is never easy, almost always traumatic, and often bloody. We call it a “revolution,” and it seems to be the only way to remove accumulated layers of inefficiency in a system that can no longer afford its costs. It is how the world works: always in bumps, never smoothly. The Seneca Effect is truly a universal principle.

The irruption of DOGE into the US political scene seems to be one of these disruptive processes. Whether it will be successful remains to be seen, so it may be interesting to compare DOGE with the earlier “Mani Pulite” (clean hands) investigation in Italy.

“Mani Pulite,” also called “Tangentopoli” (“Bribesville”), is the name of a nationwide judicial investigation into political corruption in Italy. It uncovered a wide network of corruption involving politicians and public officials; a traumatic affair that shook the Italian society. The methods used, and the support of the media left little chance for the accused to defend themselves and several of them committed suicide during the investigation. When the storm was over, after a few years, the political landscape in Italy had completely changed. The two main parties, the socialist party (PSI) and the Christian Democrats (DC), had disappeared, together with their leaders.

Officially, the Tangentopoli story was fueled by public outrage, with millions of Italians participating in mass protests against corruption. But was that true? In time, a different interpretation started to emerge. Tangentopoli, it is said, was a political operation promoted by the American CIA to oust Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who, in 1985, had refused to consign to the US authorities a group of Middle-Eastern terrorists who had landed in Italy. Apparently, he thought that Italy should behave as an independent state and not as a US colony. That may have been a slight that couldn’t go unpunished. Craxi was forced to leave Italy and find refuge in Tunisia, where he died in 2000.

Of course, there is no proof that Tangentopoli was created and paid for by the CIA. On the other hand, it is known that the US secret services often intervene in the internal affairs of foreign countries. So, we’ll probably never know the true origins of the Mani Pulite investigation, but some points remain suspicious. It is unlikely that such a vast operation was the brainchild of just a few judges who thought it was a good idea to investigate the upper government layers for corruption. So, how much did it cost, and who paid for it?

Remarkably, it seems impossible to find data about the costs of an investigation that was supposed to ensure transparency in the functioning of the state machine. I tried, but I found nothing. If you can read Italian, try it yourself, then let me know. Even the various AIs I consulted were not helpful, except the smartest of the lot, Grok. According to Grok’s estimate, a total of some 100-200 million current dollars was spent on Tangentopoli (see at the end of this post). It looks like a reasonable guess to me.

It was easier to find data on the extent of corruption uncovered by Mani Pulite; it was of the order of 5-6 billion dollars. We can say it was a good investment for the Italian taxpayers. But, as for all investments, someone had to provide the seed money for the task. And someone did, although we’ll probably never know who they were.

In any case, Mani Pulite was unsuccessful in removing corruption from the Italian state. It succeeded in bringing down the top government layer, but the state bureaucracy restarted behaving in the old, corrupt ways not long afterward.

Today, we see DOGE fighting the US bureaucracy with a heavy hand. It has several points in common with Tangentopoli, including being a political operation aimed at a decapitation strike against the current elites. But there are also substantial differences. One is the size and the costs of the operation. According to Grok:

“DOGE’s early operations appear to be supported by funds reallocated within the executive branch. On January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14158 renamed the United States Digital Service (USDS) to the "United States DOGE Service" and positioned it within the Executive Office of the President. As of February 4, 2025, reports indicate $6.75 million had been apportioned to DOGE, likely drawn from existing budgets, such as those managed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) or other executive discretionary funds.”

So far, the cost of DOGE is way less than that of “Clean Hands.” Obviously, it will increase as the operation continues, but note that DOGE aims at a larger target. The objective is to cut some 500 billion in expenses from the federal budget. If they succeed, they’ll recover a sum two orders of magnitude times larger than Clean Hands managed to recover. Italy’s government budget is much smaller than the US one, but not two orders of magnitude smaller.

The innovative side of DOGE is its extensive use of artificial intelligence to cut costs and speed the investigative process. In Italy, in the 1990s, paper documents had to be collected and laboriously read by human beings; we can barely imagine the mess it must have been. It is not surprising that the investigators went for the top prizes — the leaders of the Italian government. Investigating the hundreds of thousands of petty thieves among middle and low-level government employees would have cost more than what could be recovered

Instead, with AI, once you download the data, you feed them to the machine, and you relax while the mass is sifted in search of indications of wrongdoings, useless purchases, unjustified payments, overcharged travel expenses, and the like. The top sharks and the small fry are all in the same game; they can’t hide. It seems to be what’s happening: so far, DOGE has been targeting “agency-wide” wasted money but hasn’t attacked specific persons at the top government level (that may well happen, though).

Of course, DOGE is a political operation, just as Mani Pulite was. But the cost reduction and the vast sums of money in the hands of US oligarchs make it a sweet path to recover a lot of money and gain political power. Coupled with media control, AI is a weapon of bureaucrat extermination. It has been unleashed now mainly on USAID, but its real power is still to be discovered. So far, AI technologies have been yielded by the MAGA tribe as if they were firing a machine gun into a crowd strolling in a park on a Sunday afternoon. But they are not the only ones who can manage an AI system. We have to see what countermeasures could be taken by the targeted elites.

Then, it has to be seen how this new tool can be used internationally as a non-kinetic weapon. Could it bring down a foreign government? Probably yes: if the CIA created Tangentopoli, that is exactly what happened in Italy. But there surely exist countermeasures that the targeted government can take before its members are swamped with corruption accusations.

Perhaps the most interesting implication of DOGE is that AI systems could completely replace human bureaucrats at a much lower cost, more efficiently, and perhaps ensuring transparency. In addition, AIs cannot be corrupted (at least not so far). Whether an artificial bureaucrat could be more friendly than a human one remains to be seen, but it is not necessarily the case.

So, you may soon live in a bureaucratic equivalent of the Panopticon, the “perfect jail,” where everything you do — or don’t do — is examined, reviewed, and acted upon if needed. In part, it is already the case. As usual, the future creates itself and doesn’t care so much about us.

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Appendix — A calculation of the costs of the “Mani Pulite” investigation in Italy — by Grok.

Estimating the precise cost of the "Mani Pulite" (Clean Hands) investigation in Italy is challenging due to the lack of comprehensive, publicly available financial records that detail all associated expenses. The investigation, which began in 1992 and unfolded over several years, involved a massive judicial effort across multiple cities, led primarily by the Milan prosecutor's office. While no single official figure encapsulates the total cost, I can provide an informed estimate based on available historical context, the scale of the operation, and reasonable assumptions about judicial and administrative expenses.

The "Mani Pulite" investigation was a nationwide effort that engaged dozens of prosecutors, judges, and support staff, ultimately implicating thousands of individuals—up to 5,000 public figures were suspected at one point, with over half of the Italian Parliament under indictment at its peak. It required extensive resources, including personnel salaries, court proceedings, police operations, and administrative overhead. The investigation spanned several years, with significant activity between 1992 and the late 1990s, though its intensity waned after the mid-1990s due to political resistance and legal reforms.

To construct an estimate, consider the following components:

1. Personnel Costs: The Milan pool alone included key magistrates like Antonio Di Pietro, Piercamillo Davigo, Francesco Greco, and Gherardo Colombo, under the leadership of Francesco Saverio Borrelli. Nationwide, around 70 prosecutors were involved at various stages. Assuming an average annual salary for a senior prosecutor or judge in Italy during the 1990s was approximately 100-150 million lire (roughly $60,000-$90,000 USD at the time, adjusted for inflation to about $120,000-$180,000 USD in 2025 terms), and factoring in support staff (clerks, investigators, police), a conservative estimate for personnel might be 20-30 billion lire annually for the core team. Over a 5-7 year peak period (1992-1998), this could total 100-210 billion lire.

2. Operational Costs: Investigations involved wiretapping, surveillance, arrests, and evidence processing. For example, the initial arrest of Mario Chiesa in 1992 required hidden cameras and microphones, indicative of resource-intensive tactics. With thousands of warrants issued (25,000 "warranty notices" reported by some accounts), operational costs likely added billions of lire annually. Estimating 5-10 billion lire per year for 5-7 years, this could range from 25-70 billion lire.

3. Court and Legal Proceedings: Hundreds of trials ensued, with over 1,300 convictions or plea bargains by some estimates. Court costs, including facilities, legal aid, and documentation, vary widely, but a large-scale corruption case might cost millions of lire per defendant. For 1,300 prosecuted individuals, even at a modest 10-20 million lire per case, this could add 13-26 billion lire, though costs likely escalated for high-profile figures like Bettino Craxi or Silvio Berlusconi.

4. Economic Context: The value of bribes uncovered—estimated at $4 billion USD annually in the 1980s (6.5 trillion lire)—dwarfs the investigation’s likely cost, providing perspective on the scale of public funds at stake. The Italian government in the early 1990s faced economic strain, entering a recession in 1992, which may have constrained judicial budgets but also underscored the urgency of the probe.

Converting lire to a modern equivalent is tricky due to inflation and the transition to the euro in 1999 (1 euro = 1,936.27 lire). A rough total in 1990s lire might range from 150-300 billion lire over the investigation’s duration, based on the above assumptions. Adjusted to 2025 USD, using historical exchange rates ($1 USD ≈ 1,600-1,700 lire in 1992) and inflation, this translates to approximately $90 million to $180 million USD. In euros, at today’s value, this might be €85 million to €170 million.

However, these figures are speculative, as no official audit of "Mani Pulite" costs exists in public records. Indirect costs—such as economic disruption, political instability, or the 43 reported suicides linked to the probe—are even harder to quantify. The investigation’s legacy, including the collapse of the First Republic and the rise of new political forces like Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, suggests its societal cost far exceeded its financial one.

For a more precise figure, detailed Italian judicial budget records from 1992-1998 would be needed, which are not readily accessible. My estimate of $90-180 million USD (2025 terms) reflects a plausible range for a multi-year, nationwide judicial effort of this magnitude, but it remains an educated guess rather than a definitive tally.