Right-wing legal interests funded by the megawealthy are routinely feting lower-court judges and treating them to all-expenses-paid trips, which effectively function as a reward system for judges who espouse and maintain hard-line conservative legal views.
The bar set for bribery was set by legal precident which established a “test” which has multiple parts that must be met to be considered bribery. This test must have a clear “quid pro quo”, with hard evidence, to show that a particular action was taken in exchange for the bribe. Unfortunately, swaying a person to a particular mindset is not a specific action so it does not meet the standards of this test. It also means that lawmakers may repeatedly be given gifts and donations to be kind when writing laws in favor of things like less burdensome taxes for the wealthy, or harsher penalties for the poor - simply because those lawmakers and the gift givers are like minded and totally not engaging in bribery.
The scary thing is that this system is self sustaining and stable. Bribe to make bribery harder to enforce. Wealthy people have money to bribe lawmakers and judges, thus making laws in favor of wealthy people and against poor people. It’s got a built in Nash Equilibrium.