58
Opinion of the Court
omitted) (quoting Garcia v. United States, 469 U. S. 70, 75 (1984)); see also Ardestani v. INS, 502 U. S. 129, 135 (1991) (courts may deviate from the plain language of a statute only in " 'rare and exceptional circumstances' ").
The construction Salinas seeks cannot stand when viewed in light of the statutory framework in existence before § 666 was enacted and the expanded coverage prescribed by the new statute. Before § 666 was enacted, the federal criminal code contained a single, general bribery provision codified at 18 U. S. C. § 201. Section 201 by its terms applied only to "public official[s]," which the statute defined as "officer[s] or employee[s] or person[s] acting for or on behalf of the United States, or any department, agency or branch of Government thereof, including the District of Columbia, in any official function, under or by authority of any such department, agency, or branch." § 201(a). The Courts of Appeals divided over whether state and local employees could be considered "public officials" under § 201(a). Compare United States v. Del Toro, 513 F. 2d 656, 661-662 (CA2), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 826 (1975), with United States v. Mosley, 659 F. 2d 812, 814-816 (CA7 1981), and United States v. Hinton, 683 F. 2d 195, 197-200 (CA7 1982), aff'd sub nom. Dixson v. United States, 465 U. S. 482 (1984). Without awaiting this Court's resolution of the issue in Dixson, Congress enacted § 666 and made it clear that federal law applies to bribes of the kind offered to the state and local officials in Del Toro, as well as those at issue in Mosley and Hinton.
As this chronology and the statutory language demonstrate, § 666(a)(1)(B) was designed to extend federal bribery prohibitions to bribes offered to state and local officials employed by agencies receiving federal funds. It would be incongruous to restrict § 666 in the manner Salinas suggests. The facts and reasoning of Del Toro give particular instruction in this respect. In that case, the Second Circuit held that a city employee was not a "public official" under § 201(a) even though federal funds would eventually cover 100% of
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