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“The term ‘anything of value’Ūis broad
in scope and contains no language
restricting its application to transactions
involving money, goods, and services,” the
federal court of appeals in New Orleans
wrote in a bribery case in 1 . “The plain
meaning of the statute compels our con
clusion that ‘anything of value’Ūincludes
transactions involving intangible items”Ŝ
in that instance, conjugal visits at a prison.
Other hardtoquantify services and
beneɿts have formed the basis of suc
cessful bribery prosecutions. These have
included the granting of lenient conditions
of pretrial release, the giving of commer
cially worthless stock that might later gain
value, andŜperhaps most relevant hereŜ
an agreement not to run in a primary
election. My quick review of the case law
suggests that at least ɿve federal circuit
courts of appeals have found the phrase
“anything of value” to include intangible
or hardtoquantify beneɿts in bribery
cases, while none has ruled otherwise.
“I think there is a solid basis for DO-
to investigate these actions as poten
tial bribery violations,” says Eliason, of
*eorge Washington 8 niversity, in an
email. “That would probably require the
appointment of a new special counselŜ
and you can assess for yourself how likely
that is with >Bill@ Barr as Attorney *eneral.”
*erson, on the other hand, disfavors
the involvement of a special prosecutor.
He is more trusting of both Barr and his
departmentŜeven though he disagrees
with the department’s interpretation
of the campaignɿnance law in this
case and, prior to that, took issue with
Barr’s characterization of the Mueller
report. “I believe in the institution and
the quality of the career people who
are in it,” he says. As an assistant 8 .S.
attorney in the early 1 s, *erson led
a landmark prosecution of a sitting 8 .S.
senator under 18 8 SC Section 1.
*erson even wonders whether Trump’s
conduct might eventually come under
scrutiny in an inquiry that is already
underway. The Southern District of New
York’s current reported probe into Ru
dolph *iuliani for his 8 krainerelated work,
which has already led to the indictment
of four people, might eventually require
an e[amination of Trump’s acts. “This all
ties back to the 8 kraine,” *erson says.
“It all ties back to the same situation.”
If *erson is wrong, though, the
department’s inaction to date could only
mean one of two other things. Perhaps
the department has decided that the im
peachment inquiry is sufɿcient to ʀesh
out the facts and mete out a punishment.
Certainly an impeachment inquiry is
appropriate. Bribery is an e[plicit consti
tutional grounds for impeachment “trea
son, bribery, or other high crimes or mis
demeanors” , as Eliason points out. And
since the “thing of value” involved here
was coming from the 8 kraine, *erson
notes, it could be a foreign emolument,
tooŜyet another basis for impeachment.
But the absence of a parallel criminal
inquiry tends to demean the seriousness
of the allegations in the eyes of both the
public and the impeachment jurorsŜ
the senators. And if the President is
ultimately acquitted of impeachment ar
ticles by political allies fearful of facing
primary opponents, nothing will protect
the public from criminally corrupt
e[ecutive acts for the remainder of this
presidential term and, perhaps, the ne[t.
The last possibility is more concerning
still. Maybe the -ustice Department has
quietly decided that a sitting President is,
as his personal lawyers recently argued
in state court in Manhattan, not merely
immune from prosecution during his
termŜwhich many legal scholars have
long assumedŜbut immune even from
all criminal investigation. That audacious
contention has been widely criticized
as radically at odds with the nation’s
history and constitutional consensus.
Still, the department’s silence in
the face of mounting evidence of
Presidential criminality does raise that
distinct possibility.
Ơ Roger Parloff is a regular contributor
to Newsweek and Yahoo Finance. He
is an attorney who no longer practic-
es, and who has been writing about
legal matters for more than 30 years.