Billionaire Elon Musk said he plans to hold a rally in Wisconsin to “personally hand over” $2 million to a pair of voters who have already cast their ballots in the state’s hotly contested Supreme Court race, despite a state law that prohibits giving anything of value in exchange for voting.
How this is legal? In the past when a private citizen would go up to a politician and hand him a bag of money for some favor, we called that bribery/corruption and both would go to jail. Now a billionaire gives a personal contribution of 300 million to a politician in exchange for a high government position, and no one lifts a finger.
Boehner was handing out checks on the house floor two decades ago.
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/boehner-big-tobaccos-personal-western-union-4c4c40d3b8b4/
we called that lobbying I think