I'm going to take the cynical approach: assuming that all politicians are corrupt anyway, a newly elected senator might accept a huge amount of cash in an envel

I'm going to take the cynical approach: assuming that all politicians are corrupt anyway, a newly elected senator might accept a huge amount of cash in an envelope in exchange of legislation/contracts/whatever. That will make any other senator laugh: you have to be way way way more sophisticated about it. Be paid to do a talk at some random conference (after your term), get a nice cozy seat at the board of said company you helped (after your term), etc. If the article is correct, what this guy did is just plain stupid. But I'm not claiming you can't get away with doing something similar with good enough legal advice. This I do not know (IANAL).