Government ethics law almost never prohibits having a conflict of interest. It prohibits participating in a matter while you have one, and the remedy is recusal, waiver, or divestiture rather than any restriction on what an official may own. This article explains that structure and why so much of what the public calls corruption is handled administratively rather than criminally. It works through the criminal conflict statute and its exemptions, the gift and outside income rules, the post-employment restrictions that follow officials into private practice, and the financial disclosure system that makes the rest enforceable. It then traces the line of decisions that narrowed the federal corruption statutes to require a specific quid pro quo for a specific official act, explains what those decisions left standing, and covers political activity restrictions, procurement integrity, and the state and local systems where most enforcement actually occurs.