Supreme Court strikes anti-corruption law that bars officials from taking gifts

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-06-26/supreme-court-anti-corruption-law

by orthecreedence • 2 years ago

131 115 2 years ago

latimes.com

wnevets• 2 years ago

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted gifts worth millions of dollars over 20 years [1]

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/06/supreme-court-justices-milli...

stiiv• 2 years ago

Would you kindly clarify your point? A supreme court justice is not a state or local official (as I understand the terms), so the ruling won't protect him.

pxc• 2 years ago

The point is that the justices own histories with respect to expensive gifts is naturally going to shape their senses of what kinds of gifts are normal, problematic, unusual, etc.— as are the general norms of their peers (professionally and/or socioeconomically). And our judges are quite accustomed to receiving extremely expensive gifts basically all the time.

meepmorp• 2 years ago

It's a shame you're being downvoted because you make a fine point - Thomas' ethics aren't really at issue w.r.t. the ruling here, since it applies to local officials and not people in the federal government.

voxic11• 2 years ago

You are not wrong. This ruling mostly just harmonizes the law as it applies to federal and non federal officials.

The high court has long held that criminal laws restricting “illegal gratuities” to federal officials require proof that the gifts were given for a specific “official act,” not just because of the official’s position.

darth_avocado2• 2 years ago

In ruling for the former mayor, the justices drew a distinction between bribery, which requires proof of an illegal deal, and a gratuity that can be a gift or a reward for a past favor

I see no difference

diffxx• 2 years ago

I would be very happy if you streamlined the approval process for my project.

vs.

I will donate $20k to your reelection campaign if you streamline the approval process.

Clearly the former construction could not possibly construed as an implied bribe and we shouldn't punish those who want to reward our hard working civil servants for their honorable public service. /s

darth_avocado2• 2 years ago

I would be very happy if you streamlined the approval process for my project.

But that's not what is being compared here. The more accurate description would be:

"I am very happy that you streamlined the approval process for my project, so here is $20k."

nortonsdad• 2 years ago

Facilitation payments, which as near as I can tell are line jumping bribes for things like approval processes, are specifically carved out as an exception to the US anti-bribery laws.

lenerdenator2• 2 years ago

Even if there is some sort of difference, all it does is reinforce the impression that you need money to maintain relationships with those in politics.

Then again, if I had gone to Yale or Harvard like most of the SCOTUS justices in the majority, I'd see that as part-and-parcel of existence. There's blue-blood access to government, and then there's the access that you get if you didn't happen to come up in the upper crust of the Eastern seaboard of the US.

rufus_foreman2• 2 years ago

> I see no difference

The law does:

"accepting a bribe as a federal official is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, while accepting an illegal gratuity as a federal official is punishable by up to only 2 years. If the Government were correct that §666 also covered gratuities, Congress would have inexplicably authorized punishing gratuities to state and local officials five times more severely than gratuities to federal officials—10 years for state and local officials compared to 2 years for federal officials. The Government cannot explain why Congress would have created such substantial sentencing disparities."

Kalium• 2 years ago

I agree. There's no moral or ethical difference in any way.

Unfortunately for us, the law routinely does see a substantial difference and treats them as such. Due to that, the SCOTUS sees them as different and judges that a law on one is not automatically a law on the other.

In other words, to ban a thing you actually need to specifically ban a thing and not just something that feels ethically like the thing you want to ban.

lenerdenator2• 2 years ago

I can absolutely see why conservative justices would like the idea of handing off this matter to the states and cities. They like the idea of being a big fish in a small pond without the great white of the DoJ lurking to bust them for outright corruption.

0cf8612b2e1e• 2 years ago

I guess as long as the money does not come in a sack labeled, “Bribe” you are in the clear.

justinclift• 2 years ago

Great number plate for a car though. ;)

kibwen• 2 years ago

The Supreme Court justices have faced heavy criticism recently for accepting undisclosed gifts from wealthy patrons. Justice Clarence Thomas regularly took lavish vacations and private jet flights that were paid for by Texas billionaire Harlan Crow. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. took a fishing trip to Alaska in 2008 aboard a private plane owned by Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire.

What an utter farce.

rootusrootus7• 2 years ago

Indeed. We grant these fine individuals a lifetime appointment to the most powerful court in the land. We pay them over a quarter million dollars a year. They need no charity, and it should be a hard requirement that they cannot accept gifts totaling more than, say, $250 from any individual person in a given year. If that is unacceptable, don't aspire to become a justice of the Supreme Court.

ranger_danger• 2 years ago

What a surprise. Of course they want to keep accepting bribes. I wish political and corporate donations were illegal.

kristjansson• 2 years ago

Supreme Court finds that (a) bribes and gratuities are a different crimes under federal law and (b) the specific _federal_ law that prohibits _state_ officials from accepting bribes cannot be construed to also prohibit _state_ officials from accepting gratuities. Federal officials are still barred from both, there's nothing unconstitutional about federal law barring state officials from accepting gratuities, but federal law as written currently does not.

Although a gratuity or reward offered and accepted by a state or local official after the official act may be unethical or illegal under other federal, state, or local laws, the gratuity does not violate §666

An artifact failing to correctly implement intended requirements should be familiar around here :)

SJMG• 2 years ago

This feels shamefully on the nose. Could be worth reading the opinions.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf

OutOfHere3• 2 years ago

People don't realize what a big deal this is. It's a strong form of legalized bribery. It's game over for the USA. In other corrupt countries, no work gets done by government workers until gratuities are paid at every step. It becomes a dog-eat-dog trustless existence where anything goes. Imagine buildings and bridges keep crashing because they were made poorly, nothing is functional, and it gets only worse from there.

red-iron-pine2• 2 years ago

Finishing the job that citizens united started. This is how democracy dies.

The Americans better start using those rights they seem to wank off about, cuz if they don't they're about to get sold to the highest bidders

dc_ist• 2 years ago

About to? We're beyond "about to".

ein0p4• 2 years ago

What do you mean “in other countries”? That’s exactly how it is here in the US as well, just slightly more indirectly, in the form of “campaign donations” and “do nothing” six figure “jobs” after the official’s term ends.

OutOfHere3• 2 years ago

in the form of “campaign donations”

Campaign donations are limited to elected officials or to those standing in an election. Now it's anyone in government. Most government works are not elected, and now they could have free reign.

dudus2• 2 years ago

Corruption is a cancer. Once it takes hold it's hard to get rid. Countries in South America (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela) and asian countries are known for high corruption.

llamaimperative2• 2 years ago

No it’s not. Go to South America for a lesson in corruption.

paulryanrogers2• 2 years ago

Attempts were made to close the campaign funding loophole in the US. Sadly the supreme Court says money is speech and cannot be restricted.

throw__away73912• 2 years ago

I am convinced that having low corruption is more important to a country than say democracy. I have travelled to many countries and noticed the same pattern repeated over and over again.

Every country has at least some district in the capital city with fancy restaurants and rooftop bars and luxury shopping. If you go to such a place in a rich country and ask people what they do you'll get many answers, you'll find people who do technical work in specialized industries, managers, business owners, etc. In poor countries it is always the same answer, everyone you will meet in these places works for the government.

em-bee• 2 years ago

you are not wrong simply because corruption interferes with democracy. iaw: you can't have democracy if you have corruption, so removing corruption is a prerequisite to enabling democracy.

dmorgan81• 2 years ago

This ruling just shifts when a bribe occurs. If I had the money and wanted to affect gov't policy I'd start by "gifting" gratuities to all sorts of politicians "for your past service." Most importantly, I'd spread that information far and wide.

Once it's well known that I like giving politicians gratuities and that I always give gratuities, all it takes is a conversation and the ball is rolling. I never have to say any of the words or phrases during that conversation that magically turn things into a bribe; it's understood that once the deed is done the money will be on the way.

This ruling shreds the concept that even the appearance of impropriety is bad.

rootusrootus7• 2 years ago

the appearance of impropriety

I feel like that is one of the bigger cultural shifts, particularly in politics, that has happened over the last decade. It used to be that the mere appearance of impropriety was enough to kill a political career. Now it seems like not only is the appearance irrelevant, actual evidence of impropriety is losing its effect too.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

Yes, and in more and more cases, actual, overt, and open impropriety (not just evidence of it) serves to improve a politician's standing with the public. Nothing is out of bounds anymore. It doesn't matter what a politician does, how terrible it is: If they are doing it For The Team, then that team supports it.

nickff• 2 years ago

The idea that appearance of impropriety is bad is a moral one. There are often problems when one attempts to legislate morality.

rufus_foreman2• 2 years ago

> If I had the money and wanted to affect gov't policy I'd start by "gifting" gratuities to all sorts of politicians "for your past service." Most importantly, I'd spread that information far and wide.

Good thing you don't have the money then, because you would be going to prison. Paying a gratuity to a federal official is still a 2 year prison sentence under 18 U.S. Code § 201(c), and there are state laws against paying them to state officials.

All the court did was decide that 18 U.S. Code § 666 applied only to bribes, not gratuities.

deepfriedchokes2• 2 years ago

The same is done with job offers, book deals, and speaking gigs.

yencabulator• 2 years ago

Government officials are held to a higher ideal than a random businessperson. That seems good and desirable to me.

fzeroracer4• 2 years ago

Ah, so bribery is OK as long as you simply imply you will receive gratuity if you scratch my back (and then receive it afterwards), rather than receiving gratuity upfront in exchange for doing something.

An astoundingly stupid ruling, but one that makes sense when you look at some of the 'gratuity' the current justices have received.

rstat1• 2 years ago

But bribes already were legal. They just call it "campaign contributions".

NoMoreNicksLeft2• 2 years ago

It's difficult to construe those as bribes in good faith. If I favor a politician, some underdog, why shouldn't I be allowed to contribute to his campaign? In what ways should I be disallowed from doing so? Is only cash disallowed? Like, if he has some guy come by and clean his pool, can I offer to do that for free, so he can spend that cash on his campaign? Is that a bribe too?

Is it only bad to give campaign contributions if I'm rich? What if I don't contribute to his campaign at all, but I just find (or create) a superpac that says alot of the same things he says, so that anyone who is influenced by the superpac is likely to vote for him?

If instead you insist on no private funding for campaigns, then it becomes the issue that anyone allowed to campaign is chosen by the government through its public funding qualification process. My preferred candidate may be, in practice, barred from campaigning at all.

rootusrootus7• 2 years ago

For a start, I would be okay with 1) limiting campaign contributions to real people, 2) capping the amount at something most middle class Americans could comfortably afford, and 3) similarly capping total contributions to any PAC.

Equating money with free speech is a mistake in my view. It is explicitly saying we believe each person's value to society is strictly their net worth. For political purposes I think everyone should have an equally powerful vote, and I include campaign contributions in that.

JanSolo• 2 years ago

Oh dear, USA; you have a real problem with your Supreme Court enacting precedents for things that are clearly not in the interest of a succesful USA.

The Supreme Court is supposed to be the last-resort, the fail-safe, the watcher of the US legal system. But somehow it has become infected with partisan BS and now we have to wonder Who watches the watchers? How do we get out of this mess?

tssva2• 2 years ago

The Supreme Court’s job isn’t to enact precedents that are in the interest of a successful USA. Their job is to make rulings regarding whether laws are constitutional and interpreting what laws mean when there is a question regarding how a law should be interpreted.

Neither the constitution or enacted laws are always in the best interest of the USA. If that is the case it isn’t the job of the Supreme Court to change them. That is the job of the people either directly or through their elected representatives.

feoren• 2 years ago

If that is the case it isn’t the job of the Supreme Court to change them.

The Supreme Court changes laws all the time. Where is the line between "interpreting what laws mean" and "deciding what laws mean", i.e. changing law and making new law? The Supreme Court has been in the business of changing and making new law for a long time; this sitting court is just the worst example of it.

fzeroracer4• 2 years ago

But increasingly that's what the supreme court has been doing. They are vastly overstepping their authority in multiple regards. More recent examples include their stance on the ability of congress to delegate authority to various agencies (See: the EPA restrictions on carbon emissions). It's very easily for the court to subvert the authority of other branches by forcing them to 'redelegate' or re-litigate previously authorized agencies knowing full well that congress has been in deadlock for partisan reasons.

insane_dreamer2• 2 years ago

it isn’t the job of the Supreme Court to change them

by determining whether a law is constitutional or not, they are indeed changing laws

1992spacemovie• 2 years ago

The Supreme Court is supposed to be the last-resort, the fail-safe, the watcher of the US legal system. But somehow it has become infected with partisan BS and now we have to wonder Who watches the watchers? How do we get out of this mess?

That's a lot of words for "the court doesn't lean my way, so let us act like the entire system has failed". Extremely low quality bait.

rootusrootus7• 2 years ago

There is open corruption of sitting supreme court justices and our collective response is to yawn. This is not, or should not be, a partisan issue. Corruption is bad, full stop.

red-iron-pine2• 2 years ago

But somehow it has become infected with partisan BS and now we have to wonder Who watches the watchers? How do we get out of this mess?

It's not partisan BS, it's blatant corruption

strictnein• 2 years ago

If people are going to keep posting political stuff to HN, could we at least require them to flag it as such so it can be filtered out by those who prefer not to have politics creep into every last site on the internet?

justin_oaks• 2 years ago

Unfortunately no. I too would like each post to be categorized and tagged. And I'd like HN to allow filtering based on those tags. But that's probably not going to happen.

If you want to be the kind of change you'd like to see in the world then you could find a way to filter them out. Most of us just read the title and skip over them. Others feel it necessary to click into the comments so they can complain about them.

_lvbh• 2 years ago

Sounds like a nice extension idea. Might hack something together over the weekend since I would like this as well

briankelly• 2 years ago

Tipping culture is getting out of hand.

bell-cot• 2 years ago

Fantasy: Some $billionaire starts mentioning his plans to give ever-so-generous "gifts", to those members of Congress who vote to enlarge the Supreme Court's number of Justices...so far that the votes of the current SC Justices are irrelevant.

rickydroll• 2 years ago

I'm coming to think that we shouldn't bother trying to discourage bribery. It's a common form of business in the rest of the world. What we should do, however, is make the bribery/gratuity/gift part of the public record. We all know that Congress is bought and paid for, but I want to know by whom.

The only time punishment should happen is if a gift/bribe/whatever is not reported. Clarence Thomas's BS about not thinking it was a gift and didn't need reporting should subject him to significant legal penalties.

[edit] Last minute thought: whenever a public official takes a bribe, they should be required to wear a sticker on their suit with the logo of the bribing organization just like Formula One racers have on their suits and cars.

the-alchemist• 2 years ago

It wasn't even 5-4, it was 6-3.

The basic idea, AFAICT, is that _federal_ law should not punish _state_ crimes under this specific section of the law (§666). As noted elsewhere, there might be other laws on the books for bribes, but §666 doesn't apply here.

The distinction between "gratuities"/ "gifts" and "bribes" is artificial to me, as a normal person, but I understand that the law makes a distinction.

I'm sympathetic to the federalism argument (every state should have anti-bribery laws so that _states_ themselves can take them to court instead of waiting for the feds!).

But I don't understand why someone would explicitly write a law that tries to draw a fat line between bribes and gifts. Is that the legal equivalent of a bug? A bad law?

nine_zeros• 2 years ago

It is the legal equivalent of a feature meant for a promo that led to tech debt.

croes• 2 years ago

The same is legal in Germany despite the recommendation to change this. Politicians even claimed that such laws would hinder their political work.

kstenerud• 2 years ago

Of you want to understand why this is happening, read "The Road to Unfreedom" by Prof Timothy Snyder.

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Unfreedom-Russia-Europe-America/...

Supreme Court strikes anti-corruption law that bars officials from taking gifts

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