When is a bribe not a bribe?

Question: When is a bribe not a bribe, but a thank-you gift?

Answer: When it’s paid after the fact, not before.

So says the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here’s the setup: In 2012 James Snyder, who had big debts and was behind on his taxes, was elected mayor of Portage, Indiana. Portage needed new garbage trucks.

Snyder, as mayor, took over the public bidding process. He talked often with a pair of brothers who owned a local truck dealership, which also had financial trouble. Snyder designed the bidding so that only the brothers’ trucks met the specifications, and also had the city buy an older truck from the brothers’ lot. The brothers were awarded the $1.1 million city contract.

Two weeks later Snyder visited the two brothers and shared with them his own financial difficulties. The brothers agreed to write him a check for $13,000 for “consulting services.”

The FBI investigated. As a result, Snyder was indicted, convicted, and given a 21-month prison sentence.

Snyder, by now a former mayor, argued that acceptance of the check — the “gift” — was not a crime. He lost that argument before a federal district judge, and the U.S. appeals court in Chicago upheld the judge’s decision. Now it was the U.S. Supreme Court’s turn.

Sounds pretty much open and shut to most ordinary folks, I expect.

But most of the Supreme Court Justices are not ordinary folks. By a six to three decision five weeks ago, the court ruled that a federal anti-bribery law, enactd in 1984 and amended in 1986, exempts state and local officials who accept a gratuity for acts they have already taken.

(The 1986 amendment had extended the federal bribery law to cover state and local officials of agencies that receive at least $10,000 in federal funds.)

The six Justices in the majority constitute the court’s conservative wing: Kavanaugh (who wrote the decision), Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Barrett and Gorsuch. The three dissenters are the court’s liberal wing: Jackson (who wrote the dissent), Sotomayor and Kagan.

Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion overturned the appeals court decision on several grounds. One of the most interesting was that state and local governments already regulate gifts to officials, so the federal law shouldn’t add to those rules by subjecting state and local officials to federal prison “for accepting even commonplace gratuities.” He used as gratuity examples “gift cards, lunches, plaques, books and framed photos or the like — that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act.”

That’s a head-scratcher. The federal anti-bribery law makes it a crime to “corruptly solicit or demand...or accept...anything of value of $5,000 or more...intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business or transaction.” It’s hard to imagine a $5,000 lunch or plaque or framed photo as a gratuity. And the $13,000 gift to Snyder clearly exceeded the $5,000 of the federal law.

But former mayor Snyder argued that because the $13,000 check was written after the contract was awarded, it was not a bribe, but rather a gift, tip or gratuity. Therefore in accepting it he had not violated the federal law.

It’s not hard to imagine sweetheart agreements between contractors and state or local officials that involve, not a payment upfront, but (wink, wink) a thank-you gift after the fact.

Justice Jackson in her dissent stated that the plain text of the federal statute applies to gratuities paid to state and local officials after they acted. The crime, she emphasized, citing the statute’s wording, lies in accepting something of value “from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded. The term ‘rewarded’ easily covers the concept of gratuities paid to corrupt officials after the fact — no upfront agreement was necessary.”

She said the actions for which the law was written “involve exactly the type of palm greasing that the statute is one only today’s court could love.”

This columnist concurs.

Rick Morain is a reporter and columnist with the Jefferson Herald.