The high court’s 6-3 opinion along ideological lines found the law criminalizes bribes given before an official act, not rewards handed out after.
Eg: it’s ok to give Supreme Court Justices money after they rule in your favor because it’s normal and ok to regularly hand them amounts much larger than their salary. The Democrats on the court were the dissenters.
The decision also comes as the Supreme Court itself has faced sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices that led the high court to adopt its first code of ethics, though it lacks an enforcement mechanism.
The conservative faction:
“We’ve investigated ourselves and found wrongdoing, so now we’re making the wrongdoing legal”