Petitioner, an employee of the Small Business Administration (SBA), was the principal SBA contact for James DeShazer, the president of a company that participated in an SBA program. DeShazer believed that his company was not being provided with certain program benefits because he had rejected petitioners repeated requests for loans. Assisting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in an investigation of the matter, DeShazer, under FBI surveillance, offered petitioner a previously requested loan, which petitioner agreed to accept. Later, DeShazer met petitioner and gave him the money. Petitioner was immediately arrested and charged with the federal offense of accepting a bribe in exchange for an official act. The District Court denied petitioners pretrial motion seeking to raise an entrapment defense, ruling that entrapment was not available because petitioner would not admit all of the elements (including the requisite mental state) of the offense. Petitioner testified in his own defense that although he had accepted the loan, he believed