"It's not a conspiracy if it is not illegal." By definition.
Garden-variety corruption doesn't need a conspiracy. The US is today the world leader in high-level, fully legal corruption. It took many decades to get there, but it will take even longer to choke it off, if we ever do.
We even elected an out-and-out con man to the presidency. Russia wishes it could be so corrupt, but just doesn't have the money for it. China does, but its corruption is mostly still technically illegal.
A lot of garden variety corruption such as this is actually illegal in the US.
However, you can also form a conspiracy to commit a legal act if it’s got some negative stigma your trying to avoid. For example students may conspire to lower the bar when graded on a bell curve.
Garden-variety corruption doesn't need a conspiracy. The US is today the world leader in high-level, fully legal corruption. It took many decades to get there, but it will take even longer to choke it off, if we ever do.
We even elected an out-and-out con man to the presidency. Russia wishes it could be so corrupt, but just doesn't have the money for it. China does, but its corruption is mostly still technically illegal.