As long as you get the gift after you have done the deed, it's just a gift, isn't that the ruling?
There will be different state laws, but the federal law is particularly toothless at this point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States?wpr...
Untrue per the “legal citations” section of your own article.
Scope was narrowed. But in the two times it was tested the precedent ultimately resulted in a conviction (Menendez) or upholding of punishment (Cash for Kids).
Just because someone has been caught doesn't mean the law isn't significantly weaker than it should be. Menendez is a good example for this. This isn't the first time he's been brought up on bribery charges, it's the second. The first was dropped because of the McDonnell ruling.
Really, you pretty much have to be the dumbest most corrupt politician imaginable before you are caught in this law's net. McDonnell shows what bribery can look like and it's pretty egregious.
McDonnell was hosting and publicly promoting products from Star Scientific while receiving lavish gifts from them. Rolexs, loan, vacations, etc. Do you think if something that would harm Star Scientific came across McDonnell's desk he wouldn't act in their favor? Yet because he doesn't specifically say "I'm doing this for you guys" it's legal.
That's why the law is toothless. So long as a politician isn't an absolute moron like Menendez, they are free to accept "gifts" from anyone for anything. They just can't then turn around and write down "Oh, ok, I'll make sure to pass bill 123 for you"... like Menendez did.
I agree. But toothless means toothless. The snare still catches.
The law needs to be tighter. But to do that we should be able to agree that the current law is weak. Not toothless. If it’s toothless, there is no point clamping down.
I'd count these gifts/jobs given after the official retires the same. To that end, a generous pension wouldn't be out of line imo.
What ruling?
Generally, no, accepting gifts in exchange for official actions is illegal (and punished) irrespective of whether payment is made up front or in arrears [1].
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-senator-robert-menen...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States
The only thing the Supreme Court decided in that case was whether that specific statute encompasses a gratuity theory. That’s illegal for federal officials under a different statute that was not invoked in this case.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scop...
Under federal law, as applicable to federal officials, there’s a distinction between bribes and gratuities. Both are illegal for federal officials, under different statutes. There is also a federal law that makes it illegal to pay bribes to a state official. But there is no corresponding federal law making it illegal to pay bribes to a state official, though most states have their own gratuities laws. This distinction between bribes and gratuities is well established in the law. Bribes are about actual corruption. Gratuities are about the appearance of corruption.
A bribe can be prosecuted whether the payment is before or after the official act. But there must be some proof that the payment influenced or was meant to influence the official act. Paying a Christmas gift to your mailman is not a bribe.
What happened in the recent Supreme Court case is that federal prosecutors prosecuted a state official under the federal bribery statute, where the official was paid for consulting services after allegedly steering government contracts to a trucking company. The prosecution could have tried to prove that the contracts were steered in anticipation of the later consulting work.
The prosecution, however, chose not to proceed on a bribery theory. It asserted that the statute (which is titled “bribery”) applied to gratuities as well. And when the jury was instructed on the law, the jury was specifically told that it did not need to find that the official act was influenced by the anticipation of receiving future consulting business.
All the Supreme Court decided was that specific statute did not cover a gratuities theory. It sent the case back to the trial court; the government can now choose to retry the person and this time try to actually prove bribery.