The bribery event that continued after the target said “no”: The case of U.S. Senator Harrison A. Williams
Roger W. Shuy · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2013
This case is an example of how an undercover agent never managed to reach the bribery speech event’s necessary phase 4 completion. The problem phase was clear enough. The FBI agent posing as an Arab sheik claimed to want US citizenship, legally possible under the strict conditions that Williams outlined to him. The phase 2 negotiation concerned what the sheik would need to do to get his citizenship. During the phase 3 offer the sheik suddenly offered Williams a bribe, to which he responded “no” several times. Despite the absence of a positive phase 4 completion, the government charged Williams with accepting a bribe. This chapter shows how the contrasting schemas, agendas, speech acts, conversational strategies, and the absence of smoking guns argue against Williams’s indictment.