Whether a defendant may be convicted of bribery based on ambiguous evidence of campaign contributions without an explicit quid pro quo agreement

The First Amendment protects soliciting and contributing funds to support a political candidate based on his or her intended policies . To avoid chilling this core First Amendment activity —or exposing routine campaign donations to selective prosecution — the Government must satisfy a heightened standard when it seeks to treat a n otherwiselawful campaign contribution as an unlawful bribe . It must prove an “explicit” quid pro quo agreement , with an official act conditioned on a campaign contribution. McCormick v. United States , 500 U.S. 257 (1991) . The question presented is: When the government alleges bribery based solely on lawful campaign contributions, may the defendant be convicted based on evidence that is ambiguous as to whether the public official conditioned any official act on the campaign contributions?