So SCOTUS thinks giving money to politicians who funneled taxpayer money their way is fine, what do you think?

[Anonymous]

I mean, apparently it's only OK if you pretend that the $13,000 you got wasn't agreed to before the sale of $1.1 million worth of trucks to the city you ran. I'd never want to suggest that it was an obvious quid-pro-quo and blatant corruption.

It's not the first time Robert's SCOTUS enabled corruption, of course: "In 2010, the Roberts court limited the scope of federal corruption law in the case of convicted Enron CEO Jeff Skilling. In 2016, it overturned the conviction of a former Virginia, Republican governor Bob McDonell who, along with his wife, accepted nearly $200,000 in gifts, gratuities you might call them, and loans, from local businessmen, including vacations, clothes, Rolex. In 2020 it threw out the convictions of former New Jersey officials and the corrupt Bridgegate scandal after they intentionally caused a massive traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge to punish a political rival " (guess what party the "New Jersey officials" belonged to).

Guess how they're going to rule on whether Trump has immunity from prosecution. Either yes (which, frankly, should cause Biden to legally have the "justices" that voted for it shot), or in a way that delays Trump's trials even more.

Gone for anonymous, to give the people who have blocked me a chance to respond.

Goaded.

[Syntosi]

That is not entirely true. The Republican SCOTUS mostly had the opinion that the law is broken, you should fix the law but until such a time this is indeed the law and should be followed. In other words, the law allows a degree of corruption as written and SCOTUS does not want to go beyond their station to change the law which is the exclusive right of the house and senate as stipulated by the constitution.

There is an argument for this being an excuse and the fact that the SCOUTS is entirely within their right to interpret the spirit of the law when it goes contrary to the wording of the law but at least the Republican SCOTUS has a point, its not their job to write legislation or fix broken legislation.

[Asker]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with "justices" receiving massive "gifts" after voting the "right" way. Does it really matter if you get paid up front or simply reasonably expect to be rewarded after the fact? It's still blatantly corrupt. Hell, you can literally go out and kill some people and you'll be rewarded in today's environment.

[Syntosi]

Not saying you are wrong, just saying that its more complicated than that and realistically you could expect a similar SCOTUS decision from a far less compromised set of justices. This is a symptom of a broken government, not a broken SCOTUS.

[Asker]

I disagree.

[Syntosi]

What do you disagree with more specifically?

[Asker]

Well, they think that the law can't cover "gratuities" at all, although the law explicitly only targets officials who “corruptly” solicit, accept, or agree to accept payments “intending to be influenced or rewarded”; a prosecutor has to prove intent, and presumably did in the original trial.

[Syntosi]

They are there to interpret the law, not decide what it means. If the meaning was already corrupted when it was written or written poorly then its not their job as unelected judges to change it.

[Asker]

The meaning was always clear: if you take gifts for corrupt reasons you've broken the law.

[Syntosi]

Not necessarily, according to SCOTUS. Again, their judgement does not completely legalize corruption either but it does leave the door slightly open.

[In_Trance]

Guess what...

[Asker]

But one is more corrupt than the other. Far more. They nominated justices to the supreme court to enable corruption, the Democrats voted against them.