The haziest of white-collar crimes, honest services fraud has long been a kind of catchall for prosecutors, a case they could make whenever something more objective might not stick on its own. It was the ultimate discretionary tool and could often be added to bolster other charges, or when a fact pattern simply didn’t pass the smell test.
Honest services fraud, however, was often criticized as overly broad and dangerously vague. Prosecutors could invoke it any time a public official deprived constituents of fair representation or an executive breached a fiduciary duty, which is to say almost at will.
