What if Operation Lost Trust had occurred today?

In a rare unanimous opinion on June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s conviction on public corruption charges. Even though he received more than $170,000 from one constituent, the court said no crime had been committed because Gov. McDonnell performed no “official act” in exchange.

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This ruling came a quarter of a century too late for my client, the late Rep. Luther Taylor.

The federal government, acting in a manner the Founding Fathers would find appalling, had conducted an undercover sting operation in the S.C. State House, dubbed Operation Lost Trust. Despite the fact that Taylor had co-sponsored the bill to legalize off-track betting on horse races, that he moved for the bill to be approved by a subcommittee, that he moved for it to be approved by the LCI Committee and there were no further votes taken, he was convicted of later selling his vote in return for cash. At the time, cash campaign contributions to legislators were perfectly lawful.

SCOPPE: What Operation Lost Trust meant to South Carolina

On top of that, it was later proven that the government did not play fair. For example, the prosecutors withheld much exculpatory evidence: We received only 66 of 550 witness interviews the prosecution had before trial and only 26 of 227 tape recordings.

At the trial, the prosecutor stood directly behind Taylor and dramatically pointed his finger at the top of Taylor’s head. He asked the sting operative: “Did you ever give a dime of campaign contributions to this man?” The rehearsed answer was “never.” This was concocted. The government had in its possession a legislative manual in which the operative identified about half of the legislators as people to whom he had previously given money. He said he did not differentiate between bribe payments and campaign contributions because that made no difference to him; how the recipients regarded it was up to them, he said at the time. This perjured testimony gutted Taylor’s defense.

A disproportionate number of the targeted legislators were, like Taylor, African-Americans. Had the McDonnell opinion been the law in 1990, this sting would be remembered as an overreach by the federal government and an unfair intrusion into the legislative affairs of a sovereign state.