The U.S. Supreme Court rules state and local officials may take gifts and payments for steering contracts to grateful patrons.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down part of a federal anti-corruption law that makes it a crime for state and local officials to take gifts valued at more than $5,000 from a donor who had previously been awarded lucrative contracts or other government benefits thanks to the efforts of the official.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices overturned the conviction of a former Indiana mayor who asked for and took a $13,000 payment from the owners of a local truck dealership after he helped them win $1.1 million in city contracts for the purchase of garbage trucks.

In ruling for the former mayor, the justices drew a distinction between bribery, which requires proof of an illegal deal, and a gratuity that can be a gift or a reward for a past favor. They said the officials may be charged and prosecuted for bribery, but not for taking money for past favors if there was no proof of an illicit deal.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
    0·
    5 months ago

    🔥🇺🇸🔥

    I’d say we had a nice run, but considering genocide, slavery, highly selective voting rights, Jim Crow, Union Busting, supply side economics, foreign government toppling for domestic economic goals, warring to open up markets for resource exploitation, citizens united, etc… No we didn’t.

    We weren’t even some benevolent saviors in World War II despite the constant crowing, we had our pacific fleet destroyed so we fought back. The war came to us, we were practicing eugenics prior to WWII.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26322647/

    • baldingpudenda@lemmy.world
      0·
      5 months ago

      Yup, we entered the European theater because the ppl we loaned all that money were getting their asses kicked and knew if they lost we’d never see a cent back.

      • Allonzee@lemmy.world
        0·
        5 months ago

        And prior to us getting attacked, there were a metric ton of powerful Americans who sincerely dug the Nazi’s style, including Henry Ford, who manufactured war machines for both sides, and is still held up to children as a titan and pioneer of American entrepreneurship because he made a lot of money and facilitated more profit for other capitalists, all that matters here, so who cares what he supported ideologically amirite?

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          Let’s be fair: Henry Ford was an antisemite way before Hitler.

          In 1918, Henry Ford purchased his hometown newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. A year and a half later, he began publishing a series of articles that claimed a vast Jewish conspiracy was infecting America. The series ran in the following 91 issues. Ford bound the articles into four volumes titled “The International Jew,” and distributed half a million copies to his vast network of dealerships and subscribers. The rhetoric was not unusual for its content, as much as its scope. As one of the most famous men in America, Henry Ford legitimized ideas that otherwise may have been given little authority.

          • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            Henry Ford, the modern progenitor of “The Jyoos” conspiracy. Thats a crazy factoid. But not really cause you have to be off your rocker to exploit that many people and be hateful enough to buy out a newspaper just to trash a peoples.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
      0·
      5 months ago

      It’s very depressing, also for those of us in the imperial sphere of countries. Because we’re beholden to US foreign policy, and the worse the US gets, the more dangerous it is for us.

      I mean, we (Australia) already we’re doing war crimes for the US in Afghanistan (look up David McBride, the Australian military lawyer), already buying $300 subs as some kind of tributary payment, already followed you into dozens of wars we had no business being a part of, I truly worry for what’s next under a more corrupt US regime.

      Yikes.