ICYMI: SCOTUS Makes Bribery Legal

Last week, the Supreme Court made bribery legal. They reclassified a $13,000 bribe as a “gratuity.” Because the payment to a corrupt mayor was made two weeks after he awarded a $1.1 million city garbage truck contract, SCOTUS said it was a legal “gratuity.” If the payment had been made before the contract was awarded, it would clearly have been a bribe. 

At issue was a federal law making it a crime for state and local officials to accept gifts valued at more than $5,000 from donors who receive official contracts or other government benefits thanks to their actions. An Indiana mayor steered a garbage truck contract to a local dealership and then asked for and accepted a $13,000 “consulting contract.” Evidence showed he never did any consulting.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the 6-3 majority:

“The question in this case is whether [the federal law] also makes it a crime for state and local officials to accept gratuities — for example, gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos or the like — that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act. The answer is no.” 

Gift cards? Lunches? Plaques? None of those comes anywhere near the $5,000 limit set in the statute. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing the dissent, said that the “absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s court could love,” and that the statute ““clearly covers the kind of corrupt (albeit perhaps non-quid pro quo) payment [the mayor] solicited after steering the city contracts to the dealership.”

For more on this asinine perversion of justice, read the opinion and especially the dissent and this very good Los Angeles Times report.