Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 42.0

20 

SNYDER v. UNITED STATES 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

The owner then underwrote nearly $2,000 in expenses for 
the court’s Women’s History Month Celebration.  Why did
he cover these expenses?  “We gotta stay ahead of [the com-
petition],”  the  owner  told  his  staff.  United  States  v. 
Donagher, No. 1:19–cr–00240 (ND Ill.), ECF Doc. 98, pp. 2– 
5.10 

None of this means that courts should trust the Govern-
ment when it says that it does and will continue to enforce
a statute with care.  That is not how we do statutory inter-
pretation,  and  for  good  reason.  See  Marinello  v.  United 
States, 584 U. S. 1, 11 (2018).  But what these examples do 
show is that §666’s built-in bulwarks seem to be working.
Thus, there is simply no reason to think that decades after 

—————— 

10 Snyder’s invocation of United States v. Hamilton, 46 F. 4th 389 (CA5 
2022),  is  neither  persuasive  nor  relevant  here.    Snyder  says Hamilton 
shows  that  the  Government  “has  prosecuted  campaign  contributions.” 
Reply Brief 19.  The defendant in Hamilton was a Dallas real-estate de-
veloper  who  “supported”  local  politicians.    46  F.  4th,  at  391.  He  gave 
money to a nonprofit owned and operated by the campaign manager of 
one such politician, a Dallas City Council member.  “Some of those dona-
tions  were  used  for  [the  nonprofit’s]  legitimate  purposes;  others  were 
purportedly given to [the nonprofit], cashed by [the campaign manager], 
then given to [the politician] personally.”  Ibid.  Around an election cycle, 
“[the developer] was trying to secure some low-income-housing tax cred-
its for one of his real-estate ventures, the Royal Crest project,” and that
City Council member “lobbied to have the Royal Crest project included.” 
Ibid.  “A few years later, [the developer] needed to get a paid-sick-leave 
ordinance on the ballot in the upcoming election.”  Ibid.  So he wrote a 
$7,000 check to a different member of the Dallas City Council, who made 
clear  that  the  check  “was  not  a  loan”  and  “had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
campaign.”  Id.,  at  392.  A  jury  convicted  the  developer  on  two  §666
counts, but the Fifth Circuit later vacated the convictions because, in its 
view, §666 did not criminalize gratuities.  Id., at 393, 399. 

On these facts, it is far from clear that Hamilton involved legitimate 
campaign contributions.  But it is abundantly clear that Snyder’s case 
does not.  If a §666 conviction involving real campaign contributions had 
reached  us,  it  might  have  been  appropriate  to  read  a  quid  pro  quo  re-
quirement into the statute for that particular context.  See McCormick 
v. United States, 500 U. S. 257, 273–274 (1991).