That article is bad. It ignores the ruling specifically pointing out that 18 USC 201 among other laws does cover 'gratuities' as well as bribes, and it misleadingly claims that "[t]he Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down part of a federal anticorruption law" when referring to 18 USC 666 (Federal Program Bribery, AKA "The Beast") which is just not true. You can see it's not true in the holding:
> Held: Section 666 proscribes bribes to state and local officials but does
not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past
acts.
Nowhere in there do they declare any part of 18 USC 666 unconstutional, which is what one usually takes "struck down" to mean.
The LA Times is at least correct in stating that the ruling clarifies bribes come before the act and gratuities come after, with different legal effect, but they seem to leave out any discussion of this bit inexplicably:
> For example, Congress has established comprehensive prohibitions on both bribes and gratuities to federal officials. If a federal official accepts a bribe for an official act, federal bribery law provides for a 15-year maximum prison sentence. See 18 U. S. C. §201(b). By contrast, if a federal official accepts a prohibited gratuity, federal gratuities law sets a 2-year maximum prison sentence. See §201(c).
Point being, no, gratuities aren't really legal either, they're just punished under different statutes. David G. Savage could've just used this line from the ruling as a much more accurate summary:
> Although a gratuity or reward offered and accepted by a state or local official after the official act may be unethical or illegal under other federal, state, or local laws, the gratuity does not violate §666.
And why did they do this? Because technically giving an apple to your teacher would be Federal Program Bribery otherwise:
> The Government’s interpretation seems all the more unbelievable because §666 applies to the gift-givers as well as the state and local officials accepting the gifts. Specifically, §666(a)(2) makes it a crime punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment for someone to “corruptly” offer or give “anything of value” to state and local officials “with intent to influence or reward.” So under the Government’s approach, families, students, constituents, and other members of the public would be forced to guess whether they could even offer (much less actually give) thank-you gift cards, steak dinners, or Fever tickets to their garbage collectors, professors, or school board members, for example.
But the "bribery is legal now" take you seemingly got from here is incorrect under any interpretation of the word "bribery." Using SCOTUS' version of the word, bribes are still punished by 18 USC 666, and gratuities are punished by 18 USC 201 (as well as other laws for both categories).
> So under the Government’s approach, members of the public would be forced to guess whether they could even offer thank-you gift cards, their garbage collectors, professors, or school board members, for example.
That seems bizarre to me, an apple or a low value meal ticket are not "something of value" unless you read things literally for no reason.
They seem to be talking about 18 USC (a)(2) in that quote you're reacting to, which reads:
> (2) corruptly gives, offers, or agrees to give anything of value to any person, with intent to influence or reward an agent of an organization or of a State, local or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof, in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transactions of such organization, government, or agency involving anything of value of $5,000 or more;
The problem here is that the $5,000 here is NOT the value of the bribe!
It's the value of the funds received from a federal program you're bribing someone that's a part of. So if the garbage collectors, schools, etc. receive more than $5k in funds subject to this statute, it doesn't matter what the bribe is.
That's why they call it "Theft or bribery concerning programs receiving Federal funds" after all. You can read the holding in Sabri to see them spell that out a bit more clearly than the statute does:
> For criminal liability to lie, the statute requires that "the organization, government, or agency receiv[e], in any one year period, benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance." § 666(b). In 2001, the City Council of Minneapolis administered about $29 million in federal funds paid to the city, and in the same period, the MCDA received some $23 million of federal money.
[...]
> The Court does a not-wholly-unconvincing job of tying the broad scope of § 666(a)(2) to a federal interest in federal funds and programs. See ante, at 605-606. But simply noting that "[m]oney is fungible," ante, at 606, for instance, does not explain how there could be any federal interest in "prosecut[ing] a bribe paid to a city's meat inspector in connection with a substantial transaction just because the city's parks department had received a federal grant of $10,000," United States v. Santopietro, 166 F. 3d 88, 93 (CA2 1999).
Incidentally, those examples they used seem to have come from hypothetical scenarios raised during oral argument. You can read a bit more here in the transcript of the oral arguments:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-06-26/suprem...