[waciki]

> 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.

"of value": valuable, having a great value

[LodeOfCode]

The law actually says "anything of value of $5,000 or more". The majority opinion is just arguing in bad faith there

[Natsu]

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;

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/666

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).

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/541/600

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.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr...

[Natsu]

A lot of laws cover more conduct than people think they do, but I think that part of the point here is that it works on giver and receiver.