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Page Number: 26.0

4 

SNYDER v. UNITED STATES 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

for a payment to constitute a bribe, there must be an up-
front agreement to exchange the payment for taking an of-
ficial action.  See ibid. 

Legislatures  have  also  considered  it  similarly  wrongful 
for government officials to accept gratuities under certain 
circumstances, but unlike bribes, gratuities do not have a 
quid pro quo requirement.  Generally speaking, rather than 
an  actual  agreement  to  take  payment  as  the  impetus  for 
engaging in an official act (a quid pro quo exchange), gratu-
ities “may constitute merely a reward for some future act 
that the public official will take (and may already have de-
termined  to  take),  or  for  a  past  act  that  he  has  already
taken.”  Id., at 405. 

We took this case to resolve “[w]hether section 666 crim-
inalizes gratuities, i.e., payments in recognition of actions
the official has already taken or committed to take, without 
any quid pro quo agreement to take those actions.”  Pet. for 
Cert. I.  The majority today answers no, when the answer
to that question should be an unequivocal yes. 

II 
A 
To reach the right conclusion we need not march through
various auxiliary analyses: We can begin—and end—with
only the text.  See National Assn. of Mfrs. v. Department of 
Defense, 583 U. S. 109, 127 (2018).  We “understan[d] that
Congress says in a statute what it means and means in a 
statute what it says there.”  Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co. 
v. Union Planters Bank, N. A., 530 U. S. 1, 6 (2000) (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted). 

1 
By  its  plain  terms,  §666  imposes  criminal  penalties  on 
state,  local,  and  tribal  officials  who  “corruptly”  solicit,  ac-
cept, or agree to accept “anything of value from any person,
intending to be influenced or rewarded.”  §666(a)(1)(B).  Use