Replies

We may not be able to get them on treasonous crimes-———after all, Al Capone went to jail for tax evasion not for his other crimes.

There are existing US laws governing the misuse of public office.

DEFINITION Misuse of office implies the doing of something improper;and the essence of the impropriety is the replacement of a public motive by a private one.

When the satisfaction sought is material gain, the misuse is usually termed “corruption.” But private satisfaction may take various other forms, and the term “corruption” is sometimes used to include them as well. Further, the beneficiaries may extend beyond oneself to one’s family, one’s friends, one’s community.

The holder of a public office is said to have misused his position when, in pursuit of private satisfaction as distinguished from the public interest, he has done something which he ought not to have done or refrained from doing something which he ought to have done.

In the narrower use of the word as a criminal offense on the part of a public servant, corruption needs to be more precisely defined. For such a definition we may turn to the Indian Penal Code(sec. 161). According to the code, a person is guilty of corruption who:
Being or expecting to be a public servant, accepts, or obtains, or agrees to accept, or attempts to obtain from any person, for himself or for any other person, any gratification whatever, other than legal remuneration, as a motive or reward for doing or forbearing to do any official act or for showing or forbearing to show, in the exercise of his official functions, favour or disfavour to any person or for rendering or attempting to render any service or disservice to any person, with the Central or any State Government or Parliament or the Legislature of any State or with any public servant as such. . . .

However, we are concerned with corruption and misuse of office in a somewhat wider context. For example, members of Parliament are not, strictly speaking, public servants; nevertheless they do hold public office and may misuse their office. Honorary magistrates are public servants even though, by definition, they get no remuneration for their work. Obviously, there is nothing to prevent an honorary magistrate from being as corrupt as a stipendiary magistrate. For instance, the story is told of a retired government officer who, on the grounds that he could not make both ends meet on his pension, prayed that he be given the opportunity of serving the state as an honorary magistrate! So long as obligations, duties, or functions of a public nature are attached to any position, salaried or honorary, big or small, the misuse of that position for private ends remains a possibility. Nor need corruption be confined to public office. In an extended sense, it may be said to be coextensive with all dishonest discharge of public obligations.

Thus, an authorized dealer of rationed articles who sells at a price higher than the controlled price is guilty of corruption in the discharge of a delegated obligation. Indeed, in this larger sense, corruption has been described as “the acquisition, exercise and delegation of authority according to self interest rather than merit”(Wraith & Simpkins 1963, p. 56).

An illustration of corruption at the stage of acquisition or attempted acquisition of authority is to be found in what takes place before and during elections. The conduct of public office is tainted at the very source when those who seek to be members of legislatures, and perhaps ministers, obtain from the rich large donations for themselves or their parties and proceed to bribe the electors in order to gain votes. In commenting on standards of honesty in public administration in democratic countries, several writers point to the crucial importance of the norms set and observed during elections to legislative assemblies, senates, and parliaments (Gorwala 1953, p. 23 Bolles 1960, p. 183; Wraith & Simpkins 1963, chapter 2, part 2).

—snip-—

MORE AT https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/office-misuse