Restrictions on bribery are like gun control.
They will never wholly get rid of the issue, because they don’t address the core cause - but they reduce the tools available to the perpetrators, which has a positive effect of reducing the symptoms.
Lifting this restriction is minor, but also unambiguously bad, both morally and practically.
To clarify, we all know the Citizens United decision legalized bribery of Congress; this article talks about the removal of protections on bribery and revolving door practices in the executive branch. With those protections in place he might have had trouble filling his administration with his favorite billionaires.
It was never illegal. Its called lobbying and it’s what billionaires have been doing for decades.
It was illegal before?
Has been legal since Citizens United, the mask is just off.
There is a big difference between making something legal and not giving a shit about whether or not it is legal.
This is the latter.
You can’t legalize bribery via executive order, but you sure as hell can suggest you won’t be doing anything about it that way.
The media (and way too many people here on Lemmy) need to get it into their heads that U.S. law is irrelevant to the Trump administration.
It was illegal ?
No, the Supreme Court slowly chipped away at anything that bans corruption ever since the Powell Memo was written.
