A "Golden Age" for political corruption
"One could date the trend inside the U.S. to June 2016, when the Supreme Court overturned the corruption conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. It’s not that the justices found that McDonnell hadn’t done the things for which he was convicted; it’s that they decided that his favors on behalf of a friend who gave him more than $175,000 in gifts didn’t constitute legal corruption. As my colleague Matt Ford explained, the McDonnell decision played a key role in the Menendez case, with the judge nearly throwing the whole case out because of the Supreme Court’s verdict."
"Legal precedents like the McDonnell case are one part of the equation. So are ever looser campaign-finance laws, which allow larger infusions of money from individuals and groups, and make it easier to shroud the source of that money."
"There are many reasons why prosecutors are struggling to convict people who they accuse of corruption, and each case has its own unique dynamic. It’s difficult to imagine that the ground will shift significantly as long as the executive branch of the federal government is acting with such indifference to the appearance of clean hands."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/a-golden-age-for-corruption/546143/
