Money Trail - History

History

Hypereides, an ancient Greek writer, 2300 years ago describes "an environment in which influence peddling conducive to the well-being of the polis was allowed to flourish." The polis, or rather the city, that Hypereides referred to was Athens, Greek's capital.

Cash passing hands to obtain anything from government officials has had a long modern history. One place infamous for its corruption is the State of Illinois. Prosecutors obtained convictions against 1,000 public officials and businessman between 1970 and 2009. Included in the list were 19 judges, and 4 governors.

An analysis regarding the convictions in Chicago demonstrates the difficulty of following the money trail. Payments to influence politicians in the modern age typically come in the form of a campaign contribution. No matter how payment is made, witnesses are not willing to talk, there is a lack of hard evidence, and no real proof that the payment was made in connection with an official's action. Both the bribe payer and the bribe recipient have plenty of reasons to keep quiet and to hide or destroy any evidence of the transaction. It is extremely difficult to prove the "quid pro quo."

To obtain more recent convictions, the Federal Bureau of Investigations frequently used an undercover agent. This was a person wired to record conversations and prepared to hand over envelopes filled with cash if the official demanded it. The problem with this type of operation is it takes a long time to set up, and the official that is corrupt may have been extorting funds, or giving favors, for a long time before getting caught. This said, in the Illinois study, once charges were laid against an official, the conviction rate owing to having sent in an undercover agent was very high. Many officials have served, or are still serving time in jail. Which may mean, that Illinois is not more corrupt than other places, rather they have a strong team of law enforcement agents to find and convict corrupt officials.

At the national level in the United States, and in particular the 2012 election cycle, the regulations on money in Washington D.C. were relaxed when limits on certain types of spending were lifted. This was mainly due to US Supreme Court rulings that viewed the right to free speech to be more important than the need to contain spending.