GOP pressure on Rep. Smith for Medicare vote includes bribery

Background to GOP pressure on the Medicare vote. Also, I did not mention at the time of that post that the vote had been cast, with the measure failing to pass. The GOP House Speaker then called for an additional couple of hours delay, during which time pressure and veiled threats were brought to bear, prompting enough congressional people to change their votes, securing a reversal. How's that for getting the result you want?

On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for [the] father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, [Rep.] Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.

Speaking through Chief of Staff Kurt Schmautz, Smith assured Chatterbox that....is "basically accurate."

...Promising to direct $100,000 to Rep. Smith's son's campaign clearly meets the legal definition of bribery. The only question, then, is who to prosecute. The AP had Smith attributing threats to support his son's opponent to "House GOP leaders," but that was a paraphrase, and it is possible Smith meant someone else when he spoke of an actual offer of $100,000. We know House Speaker Dennis Hastert spent a lot of time that night trying to win over Smith.

...If Smith witnessed an attempted bribery, he has an obligation as a citizen—and even more so, as member of Congress—to make that person's identity known to law enforcement officials. Marc Miller, a Washington attorney who advises clients on ethics issues, told Chatterbox that what Novak described not only looked like "a slam-dunk violation of the bribery law" but probably also included "a smorgasbord of other criminal violations." Rep. Smith, Miller said, "should really be sharing the specifics with the Justice Department."  article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.