[[link removed]]

SUPREME COURT CASE DESIGNED TO LEGALIZE BRIBERY  
[[link removed]]


 

Katya Schwenk
March 19, 2024
The Lever
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Snyder v. United States could make it legal for public officials to
accept rewards for their corrupt actions. _

, AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

 

The U.S. Supreme Court is about to hear an obscure case that could
legalize corporations enriching public officials in exchange for
lucrative government contracts and other favors. 

Though political corruption prosecutions
[[link removed]]
and convictions [[link removed]] are already near a
historic low [[link removed]],
conservative groups are pressuring justices to deliver a far-reaching
precedent that would make it much more difficult for law enforcement
to prosecute bribery charges against politicians who seek financial
remuneration for official actions they take.

The case, _Snyder v. United States_
[[link removed]],
revolves around the dealings of a mayor in a small Indiana city who
was convicted of bribery in 2019
[[link removed]].
The Supreme Court could have allowed the conviction to stand, but
instead agreed to hear an appeal. It is the latest in a string of
corruption cases in which the high court has intervened — and in
each past case, the court has overturned convictions and limited the
kinds of bribery charges that can be brought against public officials
in the future. 

Already, multiple high-profile corruption cases in other states —
including the long-awaited criminal trial of a powerful Illinois
politician
[[link removed]]
who for years allegedly accepted money and favors from a Chicago
energy utility — have been put on hold as prosecutors wait to see
how the Supreme Court rules in _Snyder_, a sign of how far the
case’s decision could reach. 

“[_Snyder_] could chip away even more of what can be considered
corruption,” said Kedric Payne, the vice president and senior
director of ethics at Campaign Legal Center, a legal advocacy group. 

The _Snyder _case is particularly noteworthy, legal experts say,
because it concerns a landmark federal anti-corruption law — 18 U.S.
Code § 666 — which outlaws fraud or bribery within entities that
receive significant federal funding, like state governments or
universities. The Department of Justice has charged 3,123 people under
the law since 2000, averaging about 100 people a year in recent years,
federal data show [[link removed]].

“This is a very important statute,” said Ryan Levitt, a
Chicago-based attorney specializing in white-collar defense. “This
is an entire theory of prosecution, and probably the largest tool in
the prosecutor’s arsenal for going after bribery cases and
prosecuting them.”

The plaintiffs in _Snyder _are arguing that the Supreme Court should
significantly limit its interpretation of the law, and rule that it
should not bar “illegal gratuities,” or rewards given to an
official as a thank-you for a governmental action. Legally, this is
distinct from a bribe, which involves a prior agreement to exchange
money before an action is taken.

The law, Snyder’s defense claims, should only criminalize explicit,
quid-pro-quo bribery, which is far more difficult to prove to a jury.

This argument is backed by the array of powerful conservative groups
that have flocked to file amicus briefs in the case, including the
James Madison Center for Free Speech, an organization founded by
conservative lawyer James Bopp, a key architect
[[link removed]]
of the monumental 2010 _Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
_decision that legalized unlimited dark-money political spending as
corporate free speech.

“The Snyder case involves no quid pro quo,” said Bopp in an
interview with _The Lever_. “There was no, ‘Here’s a campaign
contribution. I want you to, you know, vote for me on X, Y, or
Z.’” If the Supreme Court backed such a framework, Bopp claimed,
it “would make every campaign contribution a bribe.”

Yet if the Supreme Court sides with Bopp, legal experts say it could
have ripple effects across laws that prosecutors use to bring
corruption cases against politicians.

“The most extreme interpretation could be that all gratuity statutes
or gratuity prohibitions require quid pro quo,” Payne said. If the
Supreme Court backed that interpretation, he said, it could “defeat
the whole purpose of gratuity statutes,” and make prosecuting
corruption cases far more difficult in some circumstances. 

“You would absolutely see fewer cases, and you would see more of
this behavior happening,” he added. “Bad actors are aware when the
floodgates are open.”

David Kwok, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center who
focuses on white-collar crime, agreed that the _Snyder _case could
have “a lot of influence” on a whole range of bribery statutes,
should the court opt for a broad ruling.

“Depending on what the Supreme Court keys in — what particular
language they key in on [Section] 666 to answer this question about
gratuities — it could have ripple effects into a lot of other
statutes too,” Kwok said.

A Corrupt Mayor

The _Snyder _case originated with the federal criminal prosecution of
James Snyder, the former mayor of the city of Portage, Indiana. Snyder
was struggling financially when he took office in 2012. That fall,
when the city of Portage announced it would be purchasing new garbage
trucks, he appeared to see an opportunity.

Federal prosecutors say
[[link removed]]
Snyder “rigged” the city’s procurement process to ensure that a
friendly truck dealer won the contract for the new garbage trucks. The
mayor circumvented city staff and put a close friend in charge of
reviewing bids. That friend then ensured that the city’s
requirements for the new garbage trucks were tailored specifically to
the preferred dealer, according to the colleague’s testimony at
trial
[[link removed]].

Snyder’s preferred garbage truck company was awarded two contracts,
which were together worth $1.1 million. Less than three weeks after
the second contract was inked, the contractor wrote a check to Snyder
for $13,000. The mayor later claimed this was a “consulting”
expense, although no one was able to identify any work he had done for
the truck company. 

The company’s co-owner, meanwhile, testified
[[link removed]]
during Snyder’s second trial that the mayor had showed up
unannounced at his offices shortly after the contracts were awarded
and demanded the money.

This $13,000 check is the lynchpin of the _Snyder_ case. Prosecutors
argue this payment was a straightforward illegal gratuity: Snyder
secured the contracts for the truck company, and the truck company
rewarded him for it. Because this after-the-fact payment was legally
considered a gratuity, rather than a bribe, prosecutors did not have
to prove in court that the payment was arranged before the contracts
were awarded. 

“In both cases, someone is paying a government official for a
service,” explained Kwok. “‘I cut you a check because you’re
doing something nice for me.’ The difference between an illegal
bribe and a gratuity is that a bribe has to have quid pro quo. An
illegal gratuity doesn’t have to have that. You don’t have to have
an agreement.”

But Snyder’s defense wants the Supreme Court
[[link removed]]
to rule that the federal bribery statute does not bar gratuities —
an interpretation that runs counter to decades of legal precedent
[[link removed]], and which
could influence the way other laws that ban corrupt gifts are read.

Narrowing the law to only explicit, quid-pro-quo arrangements would
make it far more difficult to bring corruption cases against
politicians like Snyder or powerful individuals like the truck dealers
who paid him off, legal experts say. Corrupt politicians, after all,
don’t tend to sign neat contracts outlining the terms of their
illicit payments.

“Unless someone’s on a wire, you’re not going to get that direct
evidence of quid pro quo,” said David DeVillers, a former U.S.
attorney in Ohio who now works in criminal defense. “You’re going
to have to almost always rely on circumstantial corroboration —
meetings with people, trying to hide the nature and source of the
income.”

Other laws that prosecutors rely on in federal bribery cases — like
the honest-services fraud law
[[link removed]] — require greater evidence
of quid-pro-quo arrangements, in part thanks to older Supreme Court
rulings that have already weakened anti-corruption laws.

“You’ve got to do a lot of work when it comes to those
statutes,” DeVillers said. “For 18 § 666, you don’t, you know.
Did they get money, did they get gifts, corruptly?” It’s easier to
meet that burden of proof under Section 666, he said, making it an
important strategy for prosecutors.

While the Supreme Court may simply reject Snyder’s argument — or
perhaps issue a more narrow ruling that doesn’t have broad
implications for the bribery law — what the right-wing groups
backing his defense appear to want is a ruling that guts the statute
and others dealing with gratuities, resulting in far-reaching
implications.

Legalizing Corruption, One Case At A Time

The _Snyder_ case could prove to be the most recent of decades of
Supreme Court decisions that have increasingly narrowed the definition
of corruption. 

“There’s been this pattern of raising the bar of what’s
necessary to prove corruption,” said Payne of Campaign Legal Center.
“If you look at the effect over the past 20 years, you will see that
there appears to be more opportunities for corruption because the law
is so narrow now with what’s needed to prove a violation.”

In its 2010 ruling in _Skilling v. U.S_
[[link removed]]_._,
the high court narrowed a significant federal fraud statute to only
bar certain bribery and kickback schemes, taking a decade off
[[link removed]]
the prison sentence of the CEO of Enron, a natural gas and electricity
company that epically collapsed in 2001
[[link removed]],
revealing widespread fraud. 

The landmark _Skilling _decision was followed in 2016 by _McDonnell v.
U.S._
[[link removed]],
which involved former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (R) promoting a
dietary supplement maker’s products while accepting more than
$175,000 [[link removed]]
worth of gifts and loans from a company executive. The court
overturned McDonnell’s conviction, finding that his conduct was not
illegal under the law and forcing prosecutors to drop charges in
similar cases
[[link removed]].

Then, in 2020, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision
[[link removed]]
in _Kelly v. U.S._, a criminal case stemming from New Jersey governor
Chris Christie (R)’s Bridgegate scandal
[[link removed]],
in which his aides allegedly plotted to create traffic congestion on
the George Washington bridge as retaliation against a political rival.
According to the court, while the activities were seemingly corrupt on
their face, they were not technically illegal because no bribes were
involved.

Finally, in May 2023, the Supreme Court opened up new loopholes in
federal anti-corruption laws in _Percoco v. U.S. _and _Ciminelli v.
U.S._, both relating to scandals under the administration
[[link removed]]
of former New York governor Andrew Cuomo (D). 

In the _Percoco _case, a Cuomo aide accepted a $35,000 payment from a
real estate developer
[[link removed]]_
_before he helped exempt the company from contracting with local union
workers. In _Ciminelli_, a contractor allegedly worked to rig the
state procurement process_ _to secure a $750 million contract for his
firm. Yet both saw their convictions overturned unanimously by the
court, weakening federal wire fraud laws
[[link removed]].

As the Supreme Court has limited the scope of anti-corruption laws,
federal prosecutions for corruption charges have steadily fallen. The
number of people prosecuted on corruption charges peaked in 1998
[[link removed]] at around 900, according
to Syracuse University researchers. Over the last five years, that
number has hovered around 400.

The use of the Section 666 bribery statute that was used to charge
Snyder has also declined, according to data from the Bureau of Justice
Statistics [[link removed]]. About 145 people were charged
under the statute per year from 1995 to 2010, but over the last five
years, the average has dropped to nearly half of that.

Free Speech Or Bribery?

The corporate-backed legal groups that are pushing the Supreme Court
to use _Snyder_ to roll back Section 666 are part of the same
right-wing apparatus that has fought to limit the scope of corruption
laws over the years. 

The groups include the Washington Legal Foundation, a legal advocacy
group funded by ExxonMobil
[[link removed]]
and the Koch network
[[link removed]];
the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal slush
fund led by a former lawyer
[[link removed]]
for Donald Trump; and Bopp’s James Madison Center.

In their amicus briefs in the _Snyder _case, the groups’ attorneys
argue
[[link removed]]
that including gratuities in the corruption law would “greatly
expand the reach of the statute in disturbing ways” and would be
“dangerous.” The briefs warn that overzealous prosecutors might
abuse the statute to go after innocuous shows of support for
politicians — an argument that ignores the precipitous decline in
corruption cases under that statute and others.

Several of the groups supporting Snyder also claim that the_ _question
of illicit gratuities is, in fact, a matter of free speech, rather
than of corruption. The tactic bears resemblance to the strategy Bopp
and his colleagues used to win _Citizens United_,  opening the
floodgates
[[link removed]]
to dark money political spending under the guise of a First Amendment
case. 

For Bopp, outlawing special interests working hand in hand with
politicians would jeopardize a core part of a healthy democracy.

“How could you run a government, where the people are influencing
the elections of politicians, if anything that they do for their
supporters… is considered corrupt?” Bopp said in an interview with
_The Lever_. “That would mean that politicians could only do things
that benefited their opponents.”

Bopp’s viewpoint is echoed in the brief submitted by
[[link removed]]
the American Center for Law and Justice. 

“Without quid pro quo, campaign donations can easily be transformed
into ‘rewards’ or illegal ‘gratuities,’” the group wrote —
an idea reiterated in briefs submitted by several labor unions that
also submitted amicus briefs supporting Snyder’s defense.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America argued
[[link removed]]
in its brief that the statute was too broad, thus “chilling
commonplace — and First Amendment-protected — political
activity.”

But as former U.S. attorney DeVillers noted, no one ever claimed that
the $13,000 that Snyder received from the garbage truck dealer was a
campaign contribution, although prosecutors did note during the
mayor’s trial that one of the truck company’s owners had
contributed to Snyder’s campaigns in the past. 

“That’s a factual issue, and I think the Supreme Court will accept
the fact that this was not a campaign contribution,” DeVillers
said. 

“If this were truly a $13,000 contribution that was given to the
official’s campaign and reported as a campaign contribution, yes,
you can start making the argument that this falls under the rules of
campaign finance,” Payne said. 

But the $13,000 check, he emphasized, “definitely was not.”

The reason the Supreme Court is taking up the Snyder case likely is
due to disagreement between different appellate courts on whether
gratuities are covered under the federal bribery statute. The Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — a federal appellate court that is
stacked with conservative judges
[[link removed]]
— has already ruled, in a separate case
[[link removed]],
that the statute is limited to quid-pro-quo arrangements, breaking
with most other circuit courts. This created a “circuit split.”

“[The Supreme Court justices] have to take it up when there’s a
circuit split like that, so I think that factor makes the situation
more opaque, and difficult to discern what’s going on in their
minds,” said Levitt, the white-collar defense attorney. But, he
said, he guessed that they were considering a favorable ruling to
Snyder. 

“My inclination is they’re leaning toward narrowing the reach of
the statute, and that’s why they [took up the case],” he said.
“But predicting what the Supreme Court is going to do is a difficult
thing.”

The justices will hear arguments in the case on April 15 — providing
the first glimpse into how they are thinking about the _Snyder _case,
and whether they are planning to deal yet another blow to the ability
to hold corrupt politicians accountable.

_The Lever_ is a nonpartisan, reader-supported investigative news
outlet that holds accountable the people and corporations manipulating
the levers of power. The organization was founded in 2020 by David
Sirota, an award-winning journalist and Oscar-nominated writer who
served as the presidential campaign speechwriter for Bernie Sanders.

* Supreme Court
[[link removed]]
* bribery scandal
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]