Cite as: 522 U. S. 52 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
managed pursuant to a series of agreements with the Federal Government. The preferential treatment accorded to him was a threat to the integrity and proper operation of the federal program. Whatever might be said about § 666(a)(1)(B)'s application in other cases, the application of § 666(a)(1)(B) to Salinas did not extend federal power beyond its proper bounds. See Westfall v. United States, 274 U. S. 256, 259 (1927).
In so holding, we do not address § 666(a)(1)(B)'s applicability to intangible benefits such as contact visits, because that question is not fairly included within the questions on which we granted certiorari. See Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 533 (1992). Nor do we review the Court of Appeals' determination that the transactions at issue "involv[ed] any thing of value of $5,000 or more," since Salinas does not offer any cognizable challenge to that aspect of the Court of Appeals' decision. We simply decide that, as a matter of statutory construction, § 666(a)(1)(B) does not require the Government to prove the bribe in question had any particular influence on federal funds and that under this construction the statute is constitutional as applied in this case.
III
Salinas directs his second challenge to his conviction for conspiracy to violate RICO. There could be no conspiracy offense, he says, unless he himself committed or agreed to commit the two predicate acts requisite for a substantive RICO offense under § 1962(c). Salinas identifies a conflict among the Courts of Appeals on the point. Decisions of the First, Second, and Tenth Circuits require that, under the RICO conspiracy provision, the defendant must himself commit or agree to commit two or more predicate acts. See United States v. Sanders, 929 F. 2d 1466, 1473 (CA10), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 846 (1991); United States v. Ruggiero, 726 F. 2d 913, 921 (CA2), cert. denied sub nom. Rabito v. United States, 469 U. S. 831 (1984); United States v. Winter, 663 F. 2d
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