The Supreme Court Case Designed To Legalize Bribery
In the case of 🔸Snyder v United States,🔸 which the Supreme Court will hear on April 15th, James E. #Snyder is claiming that when a public official accepts a “#gift” from a person or corporation who has benefited from that public official’s actions, that should not be legally considered a #bribe.
Think of it instead as a “#tip,” like you’d leave for good service in a restaurant.🤔
Snyder is the former mayor of Portage, Indiana, who, federal prosecutors successfully argued in court, rigged a city bidding process for $1.125 million worth of new dump trucks to help out a friend who sold such trucks.
After the contract was awarded to his buddy, his friend’s company gave a “tip” to Snyder of $13,000.
Snyder is appealing his bribery conviction before the Supreme Court next month, and his main argument is that the federal #definition of #bribery must include an explicit advance agreement, a spoken or written #QuidProQuo, to exchange money or gifts for official actions.
And that all this explicit agreement stuff must happen #before the official acts are taken.
If five for all of the six Republicans on the Court agree with Snyder, it will end almost all federal bribery prosecutions of #corrupt elected officials and we’ll see an explosion of politicians anxious to fall all over themselves to “earn a tip” after they bow to their “friends” wishes.
(Katya Schwenk has written a great summary of the case and its implications for The Lever.)
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