The ruling is hilarious. An Indiana mayor awarded a $1.1 million dollar contract to a truck dealership, then went to the dealership afterwards and said "I need money." He asked for $15k in cash, and was given $13k.

According to the SCOTUS this is not bribery because a bribe is an award for pre-agreed actions that is quid pro quo, and maybe the dealer just happened to feel generous to the person responsible for awarding them a lucrative contract after the fact. Only money in burlap sacks with dollar bills on them, with a person handing it over with a contract saying "this is a bribe" count as a bribe. Anything else is just a sparkling gratuity.

lol, maybe using "strongly rooted in our history and culture" is not really the best metric for determining legality

This is a massive blow to the bribe laundering industry.

There's two ways to stop corruption: one involves identifying corrupt officials and punishing them. The enlightened, neoliberal solution is to simply make the law say it's legal to be corrupt.

This is the true American democracy. Meanwhile, in a rogue country without the rule of law:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3264499/china-hands-death-sentence-senior-banker-taking-us151-million-bribes

Real "it's only bribery if it's from the Bribery Coast region" hours

I can't believe how pissed off this stuff still makes me. They're morons that dress up in black robes so people will take their arbitrary pronouncements seriously.

Soon the only way somebody can be prosecuted for bribery in the US is if they do this in public and there's a photo or video.

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Edit

Hexbear hosted images are fucky.

https://i.imgur.com/GagIGXJ.jpeg

“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,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for the majority.

Despite his reference to token gifts such as lunches and framed photos, the federal law was triggered only by payments of more than $5,000.

yeah, or the like here means a 1.2% finder's fee on a million dollar contract explicitly solicited by a city mayor, but it happened after the contract was already awarded, so that's just the cost of doing business, i guess

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA

HAHAHHAHAH AHAHHAHHAHAHAHHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAH

Wait does this mean I can start bribing my local corrupt officials and it’s ok if I just pay them afterwards? Cool!

this is the bribery equivilant of "im going to put the drugs on the hood of the car, turn my head away"

"im going to put my money on the hood, turn my head away"

oh look both things are gone now, we go in separate directions

civil code pls

The best democracy money can buy. Vote blue no matter who.

kick forwards: no
kick backs: yes

lmao

We have investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing.

Lol

On the face of it, this seems ridiculous, but consider, a Supreme Court judge has been accepting large gifts from a man who had brought cases in front of the court, and that couldn't possibly be bribery.

These assholes get paid more than me and even if they don’t, they have power. They don’t deserve gifts unless it’s a $2 hotdog gifted by some local business during a trip.