To begin with, certain “gratuities,” as we shall call them,
have been paid to the court majority as a token of appreciation. In their
ruling in the case of Snyder v. United
States, the majority decided that James Snyder, the former mayor of
Portage, Indiana, who cajoled $13,000 from a trucking company after he granted
it a city contract, was not liable for bribery. The court stated that it was a
“gratuity.” “Gratuities are typically payments made to a public official after
an official act as a reward or token of appreciation,” wrote Justice Brett
Kavanaugh in the majority opinion.
Payment of “gratuities” to the justices who ruled in the
majority in United States v. Trump follows the court’s decision in Snyder. It cannot be considered a bribe because
it was not promised beforehand. But I do hope, as Justice Kavanaugh wrote,
that there is “appreciation.”
Now, following my strict construction of the court’s ruling
on immunity, I can report to the nation that the threat to national security
posed by my former political opponent, my late predecessor, has been eliminated.
It was an official act. It was, to quote the court, “presumptive.”
