SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
"Snyder's absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today's court could love," liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissent.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with a former Indiana mayor convicted of accepting a bribe from a business shortly after it was awarded municipal contracts, a ruling that one dissenting justice called "absurd" and critics said weakens public corruption laws.
Ruling 6-3 along ideological lines in
Snyder v. United States, the justices overturned the bribery convictions of former Portage, Indiana Mayor James Snyder, a Republican who took $13,000 from a trucking company after helping it obtain more than $1 million in city contracts.
Snyder maintains that the payment was legal compensation for consulting work. His lawyers contended that prosecutors failed to prove any quid pro quo agreement prior to the awarding of contracts, and that the prosecution of public officials for gratuities given after the fact criminalizes legitimate gift-giving.
"State and local governments often regulate the gifts that state and local officials may accept," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court's right-wing supermajority, adding that the anti-corruption law in question "does not supplement those state and local rules by subjecting 19 million state and local officials to up to 10 years in federal prison for accepting even commonplace gratuities. Rather, [it] leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials."
However, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissent joined by liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor that "officials who use their public positions for private gain threaten the integrity of our most important institutions."
"Greed makes governments—at every level—less responsive, less efficient, and less trustworthy from the perspective of the communities they serve," Jackson continued. "Perhaps realizing this, Congress used 'expansive, unqualified language' in
18 USC §666 to criminalize graft involving state, local, and tribal entities, as well as other organizations receiving federal funds. Salinas v. United States... imposes federal criminal penalties on agents of those entities who 'corruptly' solicit, accept, or agree to accept payments 'intending to be influenced or rewarded'."
"Today's case involves one such person," Jackson noted. "He asks us to decide whether the language of §666 criminalizes both bribes and gratuities, or just bribes. And he says the answer matters because bribes require an upfront agreement to take official actions for payment, and he never agreed beforehand to be paid the $13,000 from the dealership."
"Snyder's absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today's court could love," she asserted. "Ignoring the plain text of §666—which, again, expressly targets officials who 'corruptly' solicit, accept, or agree to accept payments 'intending to be influenced or rewarded'—the court concludes that the statute does not criminalize gratuities at all."
"The court's reasoning elevates nonexistent federalism concerns over the plain text of this statute and is a quintessential example of the tail wagging the dog," Jackson added.
Rolling Stone senior politics editor Andrew Perez, who covers money and its influence on politics and policy, noted:
The decision is hardly a surprise given the Supreme Court has consistently narrowed the definition of corruption under Chief Justice John Roberts—even before conservatives built a supermajority. Still, the Snyder case was exceptionally brazen and unusually ridiculous—and justices chose to hear this case amid an unprecedented controversy over reports that revelations they have routinely accepted and failed to disclose luxury gifts.
"It was a ridiculous performance and display from the justices, but it served a purpose," Perez added. "Now, delivering gratuities to politicians is legal; politicians can procure personal cash payments from companies after acting to their benefit."
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have been accused of inappropriately and possibly illegally accepting gifts or other perks from others including wealthy Republican donors with business before the court. Justice Neil Gorsuch has come under fire for failing to disclose a real estate sale to the head of a law firm subsequently involved in over 20 cases before the high court.
"With the Supreme Court's Snyder decision, it has made clear that bribery has a green light for elected officials—if it happens after the official act," Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, said on social media. "A court with utter chutzpah for its own ethics misconduct is saying ethics don't matter in governing—big money can rule. What a disgrace."
"The Supreme Court's gifts shouldn't be a secret—Congress must pass a binding code of ethics now," said one advocate.
U.S. Supreme Court justices have received millions of dollars in gifts over the past two decades—with far-right Justice Clarence Thomas being the main beneficiary of this largesse, according to a detailed analysis published Thursday.
The advocacy group Fix the Court published a database listing 546 total gifts valued at over $4.7 million given to 18 current and former justices mostly between 2004 and 2023, as identified by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The database also lists "likely" gifts received by the justices and their estimated values, bringing the grand total to 672 gifts valued at nearly $6.6 million.
The database was published a day before the justices are expected to release their financial disclosure reports.
"Supreme Court justices should not be accepting gifts, let alone the hundreds of freebies worth millions of dollars they've received over the years," Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth said in a statement Thursday.
Thomas led the pack with 193 FTC-identified gifts collectively valued at over $4 million. Of these, he listed only 27 in financial disclosure reports.
According to Fix the Court, Thomas' gifts consisted mainly of
free trips to Bohemian Grove—a secretive, men-only retreat in Northern California—and Topridge, the private lakeside resort in upstate New York owned by billionaire Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
By dollar amount, the late Justice Antonin Scalia came in a distant second with 67 gifts worth over $210,000 combined, while Justice Samuel Alito took 16 gifts valued collectively at just over $170,000. At the low end of the database, Justice Brett Kavanaugh received a single gift worth $100, while former Justice David Souter was also given one gift with a value of $349.
According to the analysis:
The tally includes the amount of principal and interest—$253,686—we believe Tony Welters forgave in 2008 for the luxury RV he gifted to Thomas the decade before. FTC's numbers include the tuition gifts, $144,400 across six years, Thomas received for his grandnephew... It captures the value of Thomas' yacht trips to Russia, the Greek Isles, and Indonesia, as well as some new information on the Thomas flights Tony Novelly paid for and the Scalia and Alito fishing trips Robin Arkley paid for that's included in the congressional record. The value of the gifts Scalia received on his ill-fated trip to Marfa, Texas, in 2016 are also included.
"Public servants who make four times the median local salary, and who can make millions writing books on any topic they like, can afford to pay for their own vacations, vehicles, hunting excursions, and club memberships," said Roth, "to say nothing of the influence the gift-givers are buying with their 'generosity.'"
"The ethics crisis at the court won't begin to abate until justices adopt stricter gift acceptance rules," he added.
Thomas' gifts from billionaire Republican donors—and his refusal to report them—have fueled calls for his recusal from some cases and even resignation.
Following intense public pressure, the Supreme Court last November announced it had formally adopted a code of conduct that was promptly slammed as a "toothless PR stunt" by the watchdog Revolving Door Project and others.
"The ethics crisis at the court won't begin to abate until justices adopt stricter gift acceptance rules."
"Headline after headline about Supreme Court justices accepting lavish vacations and eye-poppingly expensive gifts is bound to erode trust in the court," U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said on social media Wednesday. "We need to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act and enforce a real code of ethics."
Fix the Court and other groups also support the Supreme Court Ethics and Investigations Act, which was introduced earlier this week by Congressman Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and would create a Supreme Court Office of Investigative Counsel tasked with investigating ethical improprieties and reporting them to Congress.
Reacting to the new analysis, the pro-democracy group Stand Up America said, "The Supreme Court's gifts shouldn't be a secret—Congress must pass a binding code of ethics now."
The simple reality is that the future of American democracy is as much on the line in the case against Trump as it was in 1866. That was completely lost in Thursday’s arguments: it should have been central to them.
The single most astonishing thing about Thursday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court was the almost complete lack of historical context in those arguments about an insurrectionist staying on the ballot.
The fear that led Colorado to ban Trump from the ballot was that he’d keep his word and “suspend the Constitution” and “be a dictator on day one.” Neither were mentioned even once: the words “suspend” and “dictator” don’t appear anywhere in the transcript.
And yet that is exactly what provoked Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Michigan’s Senator Jacob Howard, and New York’s Senator Roscoe Conkling (and 12 others) to write and push through Congress the 14th Amendment.
The Confederate states had ceased to be a democracy in any real sense by the late 1830s, as I detail in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy, with the wealthiest families in each of those states running them like dictatorial fiefdoms.
When their political or economic power was challenged, they were not at all reluctant to beat, imprison, and even lynch poor or working-class whites: much like today’s Russia, no dissent was tolerated. If somebody tried to launch a serious political challenge against one of the Old South’s oligarchs during that era, they most frequently ended up dead or being burned out of their home.
That is the American Trump is promising to bring us back to “again.”
Compounding this, Lincoln had made the horrible mistake of taking a slaveholder, Andrew Johnson, as his second-term Vice President — a largely futile effort at healing the nation — and when Lincoln was assassinated the following year and Johnson became president, Congress freaked out.
On the Supreme Court, both Chief Justice Roger Taney and Associate Justice Samuel Nelson were in poor health; Taney had authored the notorious Dred Scott decision (and had earlier owned enslaved people) and Nelson’s tuition through law school was paid by his father selling one of his family’s enslaved individuals.
So Congress — fearing President Johnson was preparing to appoint another Confederate sympathizer to the Court — passed legislation in 1866 cutting the size of the Supreme Court from ten to six members.
That’s how concerned they were — and how extreme an action they were willing to take — to rescue the fragile democracy that the Confederate oligarchs had just recently tried to destroy.
Congress, particularly the Radical Republican faction Stevens led, then essentially went to war with President Johnson and those who supported him, who bitterly opposed ratification of the 14th Amendment.
The landslide victory of the Radical Republicans in the election of 1866 arguably saved the day for the Amendment and helped save American democracy.
That virtually none of this history was mentioned by the attorneys representing Colorado in the arguments before the Court Thursday is tragic; even worse is how the justices seemed so intent on finding technical reasons to ignore the plain language of the Amendment’s Section 3.
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
The simple reality is that the future of American democracy is as much on the line in this case as it was in 1866. That was completely lost in Thursday’s arguments: it should have been central to them.
So, why did even the “liberal” wing of the Court go along with this charade? Was it because, like Mitt Romney said of his Republican Senate colleagues who failed to convict Trump in his second impeachment, they were afraid for their own safety?
As Romney’s biographer, Atlantic writer McKay Coppins, wrote:
“One Republican congressman confided to Romney that he wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety. The congressman reasoned that Trump would be impeached by House Democrats with or without him — why put his wife and children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome?
“Later, during the Senate trial, Romney heard the same calculation while talking with a small group of Republican colleagues. When one senator, a member of leadership, said he was leaning toward voting to convict, the others urged him to reconsider. You can’t do that, Romney recalled someone saying. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your children. The senator eventually decided they were right.”
Were we watching the consequence of Trump’s thuggish threats? After all, just a few weeks ago Trump attorney Alina Habba said on Fox “News” of Bret Kavanaugh:
“You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the President went through how to get into place, he’ll step up.”
Nice little house and kids you’ve got there, Brett; be a shame if something were to happen to them…
This is how fascists and authoritarians have seized and held power for all the millennia we’ve had what we call civilization: by inducing terror. Just ask Ruby Freeman or Paul Pelosi. Or read Shakespeare or the Bible. Or talk with Alexi Navalny’s wife.
Did they never learn in American History class that there was a time, spanning about a generation, when democracy had been replaced by strongman oligarchy in the South and Trump is merely echoing the values and postures of that time?
That the 14th Amendment was written to prevent or rescue us from exactly today’s situation?
Stevens, Howard, and Conkling went to their graves believing they’d secured America’s future. Tragically, Trump’s lawyers, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence “sugar baby” Thomas (among others) proved they were wrong.
Thursday’s hearing was a disgrace. Now that the Supreme Court has apparently failed in their responsibility, it’s up to us to prevent this monster or anyone like him from ever again setting foot in the halls of American power.
Make sure everybody you know is registered to vote and understands what’s at stake this November.