At one point, though, the agent playing the sheikh would offer the congressmen an outright bribe.
John Nieradka, Summit, N.J.: I have over 20 years experience within the medical device industry and would love to share with you a first hand account of how companies obfuscate the truth between what constitutes a medical consultant and what is an outright bribe to have the surgeon's or physician's business.
While residents have reported receiving cash directly, outright bribes are delivered more discreetly.
Presumably this time there have been no outright bribes, but the giveaways to corporations are actually much larger.
The use of deferments, loopholes and outright bribes to draft board has led to a manifest sense of unfairness.
Limits on spending used to prevent donations from becoming outright bribes, but now the limits are gone, and the path to corruption is clear.
For six years, some members of Congress provided secret earmarks for lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions, foreign trips and, in some cases, outright bribes.
Investigators have found some stock-loan traders steered millions of dollars of fraudulent finder fees to conspirators, often in exchange for no services, in exchange for outright bribes or payments to relatives.
Days earlier, fourteen people had been indicted — including seven FIFA officials who were arrested in Switzerland — on charges of racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering that ranged from a maze of wire transfers to outright bribes in envelopes filled with cash.
First, there needs to be much more support for aggressive investigative journalism -- by traditional news outlets and innovative non-profits -- that exposes revolving door hires, connections between campaign donations and legislative votes, outright bribes, and other signs that conflicts of interest have led to policy results that hurt our citizens.
"We should keep the playing field level for consumers," Mr. Spitzer said, "by ensuring that tickets are not withdrawn from the box office improperly through the payments of bribes or outright theft.
