There is basically no form of political corruption that the conservative justices won’t find a way to excuse.
BY MADIBA K. DENNIE
JUNE 26, 2024
The Supreme Court’s conservative justices have been plagued by nonstop coverage of ethics scandals for the past year: luxury Alaskan fishing adventures with a billionaire who later had business before the Court, secret quarter-million dollar loan forgiveness for luxury RVs, exotic escapades to Indonesia and other freebies on Harlan Crowe’s dime, and so on. According to research conducted by Fix the Court, over the past two decades, Supreme Court justices have accepted hundreds of gifts that are together worth up to $6.6 million, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, who has personally accounted for about $5.9 million of that total all by himself.
As questions swirled around about the justices’ integrity, the Court took up another case about the proper interpretation of federal bribery laws. Today, the Court issued its ruling Snyder v. United States and seized the opportunity to make its stance on corruption clear: Corruption is okay, actually.
Federal law makes it a crime for government officials to “corruptly” accept payments while “intending to be influenced or rewarded” in connection with business involving $5,000 or more. James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana, was convicted under that law for rigging an ostensibly public bidding process for a million-dollar contract, and then telling the winners that he needed $15,000 to pay off his tax debt and cover his holiday expenses. The company ultimately cut Snyder a check for $13,000, and its controller testified at trial that they were paying for an “inside track.” Snyder later claimed the money was for “consulting;” when asked, his answers changed about what he was supposed to have been “consulting” for ...
https://ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/snyder-v-us-supreme-court-opinion-recap-we-love-bribes-so-much/
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