Harvard University Press blog:

In Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United, Teachout reminds us that the particularly demanding notion of corruption represented by that early gifts rule is central to American law and democracy. This notion of corruption, she explains, is not limited to the blatant bribes and explicit quid pro quo to which Chief Justice Roberts referred in this week’s McCutcheon v. FEC ruling, and Justice Kennedy in Citizens United before that. The foundational American understanding of corruption encompassed emotional, internal, psychological relationships in an effort to protect the morality of interactions between official representatives of government and private parties, foreign parties, or other politicians.