From the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service:
RALEIGH, N.C. ? Frank Perry, a 22-year FBI agent and current co-founder and director of public affairs of the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service, Inc., issued the following statement today concerning the U.S. Supreme Court?s pending review of ?honest services fraud? law:
?The U.S. Supreme Court soon will hear arguments regarding the alleged vagueness and unnecessary scope of what is known in federal law as ?honest services fraud.? The FBI and federal prosecutors need the letter and spirit of this violation left intact. Honest services is described in federal law in three lines, contrasted with state ethics laws which are lengthy and essentially of no use in fighting public corruption. More people are sent to prison each year for honest services fraud than ethical violations, bribery, and extortion combined. The reason is that honest services fraud speaks in common sense terms with the clarity of an ethical admonishment from one’s grandparents: citizens have a right to have fair and honest representation by the public servants they elect.
?This core value marks the wrongness – certainly the illegality – of bribes, self-dealing, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, Hobbs Act, and violations of all other state and federal anti-corruption statutes. Mere compliance with ?ethical? financial disclosure/conflict of interest laws accomplishes little. Citizens demand a higher, different sort of ethics from their public servants, and this sense of ethics in public service is captured by the honest services law now before the Supreme Court.
?Public servants, by definition and by their oath, take on new obligations, and they should not accept their respective positions if they do not want to live up to the higher standard paved with new obligations. The moral concepts framed by honest services law hold public servants more accountable for their actions because they see more, know more, have more power, receive pay from the citizens, and must make ethical decisions for the sake of the people they serve. The oath or affirmation public servants render upon taking their office – from ?I do solemnly swear (or affirm)…? to ?…I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter…? – contains a golden thread of practical but profound commitment to the higher ethical standard presupposed in honest services law, especially useful when public servants face conflicts of interest and the temptations and vagaries that position and power afford. If the court retreats from the moral position honest services law affords, the arsenal to fight public corruption will be greatly depleted.?
Here‘s what Rick had to say about this topic over the weekend.
