Since the 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court has sought to clarify the boundaries of federal bribery and corruption law. The overall effect has been to complicate, perhaps even curtail, such prosecutions. This pattern began with McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350 (1987), which limited the scope of the mail/wire fraud statutes, and continued after Congress enacted the "honest services" statute (18 U.S.C. §1346), through Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358 (2010), McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S. 550 (2016), Kelly v. United States, 590 U.S. —, 140 S. Ct. 1565 (2020), and last term in Ciminelli v. United States, 598 U.S. 306 (2023) and Percoco v. United States, 598 U.S. 319 (2023).