Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 19

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

gratuities.  That argument is misconceived. 

In  isolation,  the  word  “rewarded”  could  be  part  of  a 
gratuities statute or a bribery statute—either (i) a reward 
given after the act with no agreement beforehand (gratuity)
or  (ii)  a  reward  given  after  the  act  pursuant  to  an
agreement  beforehand  (bribe).  But  as  noted  above,  the 
word “corruptly” in the text of §666 helps resolve the issue 
here.  The bribery statute for federal officials, §201(b), uses
the term “corruptly.”  But the gratuities statute for federal 
officials, §201(c), does not.  The term “corruptly” therefore 
signals  that  §666  is  a  bribery  statute.    And  statutory
history,  statutory  structure,  statutory  punishments,
federalism,  and  fair  notice  strongly  reinforce  that  textual
signal and together establish that §666 is a bribery statute. 
Contrary to the premise of the Government’s argument, 
moreover,  bribery  statutes  sometimes  use  the  term 
“reward.”  See, e.g., 18 U. S. C. §600; 33 U. S. C. §447.  The 
term “rewarded” closes off certain defenses that otherwise 
might be raised in bribery cases.  Consider a bribe where 
the  agreement  was  made  before  the  act  but  the  payment
was  made  after  the  act.  An  official  might  try  to  defend
against the bribery charge by saying that the payment was 
received only after the official act and therefore could not 
have  “influenced”  the  act. 
  By  including  the  term 
“rewarded,”  Congress  made  clear  that  the  timing  of  the
agreement is the key, not the timing of the payment, and 
thereby precluded such a potential defense.  
  And think about the official who took a bribe before the 
official  act  but  asserts  as  a  defense  that  he  would  have 
taken  the  same  act  anyway  and  therefore  was  not 
“influenced”  by  the  payment.  To  shut  the  door  on  that 
potential  defense  to  a  §666  bribery  charge,  Congress
sensibly added the term “rewarded.”  

So  even  if  “influenced”  alone  might  have  covered  the 
waterfront of bribes, adding “rewarded” made good sense to 
avoid  potential  ambiguities,  gaps,  or  loopholes.  Congress