Inquirer editorial: The feds' corruption fight is in danger

Getting caught in a 2011 FBI sting apparently didn't prevent disgraced insider John Estey from grabbing for more. When the FBI gave him $20,000 to bribe Pennsylvania legislators as an undercover informant, he allegedly pocketed $13,000 of it. Estey, who served as Gov. Ed Rendell's chief of staff, is expected to plead guilty as a result of the same investigation that forced another prominent Democrat, former state Treasurer Rob McCord, to admit threatening potential donors with official retribution if they didn't give enough to his failed gubernatorial run.

Estey and McCord are amateurs compared with the pols who know the right combination of winks and nods to get the money and stay out of trouble. For them, the law, especially on ethics and campaign donations, is full of loopholes.

The Inquirer reported last week that Estey, who is awaiting approval of his guilty plea, and McCord, who pleaded guilty last year, both cooperated with federal investigators, suggesting more unsavory revelations to come. Such federal investigations are essential in a state where the attorney general, Kathleen Kane, famously squashed corruption probes and where local prosecutors often shy away from politically sensitive cases.

Unfortunately, during a hearing last week on a bid to overturn the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, the U.S. Supreme Court hinted that it may deprive federal prosecutors of an important anticorruption tool.

McDonnell's lawyers argue that he had a right to take a Rolex, a jet ride, and money for his daughter's wedding from a businessman looking for a state favor. Besides, they say, he wasn't acting in his official capacity when he took the gifts.

These audacious theories seem to have persuaded the court to consider further narrowing the legal concept of theft of honest services. That is the idea that the public rightly expects its officials to put the public interest before those of gift-bearing special interests and individuals.

The court already weakened the law once, ruling in 2010 that evidence of a bribe is required to make honest-services theft a crime. The justices' latest questions suggest that they could parse to death the term "official acts," which is what politicians are charged with trading for personal gain in honest-services theft prosecutions.

For instance, McDonnell's official reception in his official mansion, where he induced his official subordinates to perform official services for the businessman in question, could be deemed insufficiently official. Astonishingly, this is despite the businessman's testimony that he expected the governor's official assistance in exchange for his gifts.

While the fate of one charge against a convicted politician may not amount to much, the Supreme Court could leave federal prosecutors with one less weapon to fight corruption in places where state and local prosecutors don't or won't pursue it, or where state laws like Virginia's consider such gifts legal.

Weakening the law would allow more officials to pocket money with impunity and rob the public of representation. It would create an environment in which the clumsy stumble into the FBI's arms but more clever corruption goes untouched.