Not so sure about that. I remember reading an interview, back in the '90s, with a lobbyist that was convicted and jailed for bribery. He said that US congress[wo]men were surprisingly cheap. He could get a billion-dollar contract awarded, for a couple of thousand bucks.
I think Johnny Walker Red[0] sold sub secrets (the worst kind), for just a couple of million bucks.
And of course there was almost certainly a lot lost in the sudden withdrawal of USAID.
There's a lot of Israeli "cybersecurity" firms, some of which overtly make and sell spyware.
> I'm not sure Americans are any more susceptible to bribery than elsewhere
Americans are more expensive, but high level political bribery and compromise is possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_of_Paul_Manafort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina