Examples include the exchange of small improper gifts or use of personal connections to obtain favors.

Mr. Phelan recommended that the ethics committee hold this investment to have been an improper gift from a person with direct interest in legislation.

Case in point: the latest dust-up over potentially improper gifts of "soft money" by foreign citizens and companies to the Democratic Party.

He received improper gifts, including housing and cash, from a booster.

Did the Speaker's wife perform so little work for the businessman that her salary amounted to a portion of the improper gifts?

But the rules against improper gifts are neither new nor utopian.

The arrangement is not the first time that employees of the railroad have been found to have accepted improper gifts.

One of the major focuses was improper gifts given to Reggie Bush.

The authority's inspector general's office, which looked into the improper gifts, had referred their cases to the commission.

He was found to have accepted several improper gifts, including the use of a San Diego area home by members of Bush's family.