Fun fact - the United States does not have a standalone federal crime of “influence peddling.” When the US became a party to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the argument against new legislation that would prohibit the sale of access by public officials was effectively: our laws already prohibit that conduct. But that was 2006 - ten years before McDonnell v. United States, in which SCOTUS held that to demonstrate bribery, the prosecution must prove that the defendant engaged in or agreed to engage in an “official act” in exchange for the thing of value offered, promised or given to them. So here we are in 2026 and any attempt to prosecute the sale of access will be an uphill battle.