John Oliver Bribed The Supreme Court

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Sorry, occupational hazard: This is not legal advice, nor can I give you legal advice. I AM NOT YOUR LAWYER. Sorry! Everything here is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Nothing here should be construed to form an attorney-client relationship. Also, some of the links in this post may be affiliate links, meaning, at no cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. But if you click, it really helps me make more of these videos! All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes. See Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, 276 F.Supp.3d 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Equals Three, LLC v. Jukin Media, Inc., 139 F. Supp. 3d 1094 (C.D. Cal. 2015).

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[chigozieubah]

Lawyer: My Client's offer was _obviously_ a joke.
Oliver: This is _NOT_ a joke!!

[bradleymorgan]

To John's credit, the offer could only be collected once he's no longer a public official.

[beatmasterbossy]

No no no, he's saying IF you resign... THEN I will give you this gift.

No longer a public official. Boom. Legal.

[samanthac.]

$277, 700 per year is _low pay_ ? Somebody should put them on minimum wage and see how they feel about the original salary then.

[jokuvaan]

He actually consulted his lawyers before making the offer and I think he quoted them telling him "Yea this is somehow legal"

[tjmone]

It's not a bribe. It's a severance package.

[mvpd]

Ironically Oliver's offer could be seen as a bribe yet the millions of dollars of gifts and services Thomas has recieved is not.

[xIQx]

You might have missed it, but it’s actually 100% legal to bribe a Supreme Court Justice. It’s literally unconstitutional to punish anyone for bribing a Supreme Court justice. Ask the Supreme Court, they’ll tell you!

[JoseTorres-ryqe]

The real joke here is that the bribe has to be announced on national television before it gets an inquiry of investigation

[brandondavidson]

I'll say the whole point of Oliver's offer is that it's NOT a joke and NOT bribery. He's not paying Thomas to judge any specific way or show favoritism, just to resign.

[DigitalFlow]

Irony, if they charged John Oliver, they would have to charge all those on the list of gift givers to Justice Thomas.

[oddforoddssake]

Mr. Oliver really hit him with “I’m gonna pay you five dollars to f*** off.” 😂

[crossstar]

John is just a close friend offering normal gifts.

[pp]

If they went after Oliver they would have to investigate Thomas.

[davidreed]

The fact that Thomas got all these other "gifts" maybe Oliver should present his offer as a "gift" too.

[natbarmore]

I’d love to see a summary of relevant caselaw on what constitutes “corrupt intent”. It seems to me (as a non-lawyer) that Oliver not asking Thomas to do anything illegal, not asking him to do or not-do anything in his scope as a public official, not asking Thomas to do or not-do anything to directly benefit Oliver or specific other people, and Oliver doing it publicly and with formal legal documentation (the contract) all argue heavily against “corrupt intent”.

[anamendoza]

In that episode, John Oliver very clearly did his research and stated the facts, it's LEGAL, 100%. The law that bans this sort of luxurious gifts that seem like bribery do not apply to members of the supreme court. It's RIDICULOUS because it's LEGAL

[LaurennM]

“This is obviously a joke”
John: “this is not a joke”
😂

[DevilFruitZero]

If you look at other Supreme Court justices, they have received questionable gifts too.

[change_of_game_energy]

When Thomas receives the gift, he is no longer a judge in the Supreme Court, so it is not a bribe. A funny detail, if the gift was given here in Denmark, Thormas will get a more modest income of $3.4 million and will therefore have to pay 1.9 million more in taxes that year and if he wants to have the opportunity to drive his camper on Danish roads, it will be an additional $3.6 million in registration