If you think President Donald Trump’s administration has a corruption problem, you are not alone: Even many Republicans are worried. But if you think the way to address it is simply to prosecute the offenders, you are sadly mistaken: As recent events illustrate, it will take new laws to bring the wrongdoers to justice.

The New York Times reported this week that Alina Habba, the president’s former attorney whom he appointed US attorney for New Jersey, accepted a $50 million deal from the daughter of a Venezuelan billionaire who was seeking a pardon. (He eventually got it.) That revelation followed the resignation earlier this month of US Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., after the Wall Street Journal reported that she had asked a Trump donor — who was himself seeking favors from the administration — to pay her $100,000 credit card bill.

Such shady business practices are not an aberration. Lawyers and lobbyists have charged individuals millions of dollars in exchange for securing pardons from the president, though the administration has denied that pardons are for sale. In addition, corporations have made large donations to the president’s pet projects, such the White House ballroom, creating conflicts of interest in government contracting and regulatory enforcement.

Yet most of these dealings are not illegal. They operate in the gray area known by prosecutors as “slime, not crime.”One obstacle to a criminal investigation into Habba or Guilfoyle is a Justice Department that seems more interested in serving Trump than the interests of justice. But there are additional legal barriers that go beyond the problems of the current DOJ.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has severely limited the prosecution of bribery, narrowly interpreting the federal ant-bribery statute to require a specific In 2016, in , Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that public officials who accept money or other things of value are guilty of bribery only if do they so in exchange for the performance of an “official act.”To commit an official act, the public official must make a decision or take an action on a matter under consideration. “Setting up a meeting, talking to another official, or organizing an event … does not fit that definition of ‘official act,’” he wrote.

In the case, that standard led to the reversal of the conviction of the former governor of Virginia for accepting $175,000 in gifts and loans from the owner of a nutritional supplement business in exchange for arranging meetings and hosting events to promote the product. Under this interpretation of the bribery statute, even if Habba talked to the pardon attorney and persuaded him to grant the pardon, her conduct would not have amounted to an “official act.”It gets worse. In another case, from 2024, the court ruled that it was OK for the mayor of an Indiana city to accept a $13,000 check from a trucking company because he did so he awarded it a $1.1 million contract. The Court held that it was a “gratuity,” not a bribe, and therefore he could not be convicted under federal law.

These cases give corrupt public officials a roadmap for evading the law — take bribes but don’t take any “official” action, or take the action first and collect the reward later. Both are awful but, according to the Supreme Court, lawful.

The way to tackle this kind of corruption is through legislation. The next Congress should amend the bribery statute to cover public officials who use their positions merely to influence government decisions, even if they themselves are not the decisionmaker. Such an extension of the law would prevent officials such as Habba from escaping accountability if the facts were to bear out a corrupt bargain.

Congress should also amend the statute to make it clear that it does not matter when a public official takes a bribe. Whether payment occurs before or after the commission of an official act, the official must decline the payment or face potential criminal charges.

But the cleanest option may be for Congress to prohibit gifts altogether. Federal ethics rules already prohibit government employees from accepting gifts from sources with potential business before the government. Many states and municipalities have similar bans on gifts to public officials.

When I served as US attorney in Michigan, my office brought a criminal prosecution against former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on charges of bribery, extortion, fraud and tax offenses. His primary defense was that the cash and other benefits he received from contractors doing business with the city were just gifts, not then prohibited under law. The jury rejected this defense. After Kilpatrick was convicted, the City of Detroit passed a ban on gifts , both to close the loophole and promote integrity.

Similarly, Congress should consider legislation banning gifts. It could apply to those who give gifts as well — either explicitly or by making it a crime to conspire with an officeholder to provide a gift. Exposing the payers to prison time would have a deterrent effect. In addition, Congress could create a civil cause of action and grant standing to its members to sue office holders and their gift givers. A civil remedy would have the advantage of being pardon-proof.

Finally, Congress should ban private donations for public projects. When government contractors make large contributions for inaugural galas or a presidential ballroom, conflicts of interest are inevitable. By limiting funding for such projects to congressional appropriations, the country can avoid these conflicts and their appearance.

Restoring public confidence in government is a long-term project. But laws that prevent, deter and punish corruption would be a good start Elsewhere in Bloomberg Opinion: For more, to our newsletter.