June 2024 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Will The UK Supreme Court Decision In PACCAR Affect Hong Kong Litigation Funding? - Litigation Finance Journal
by Gunnar Larson 05 Dec '24

05 Dec '24

Check out my recent article: https://litigationfinancejournal.com/will-the-uk-supreme-court-decision-in-… The Hong Kong Department of Justice’s approach to litigation finance and third party funding is coming into greater focus following the UK Supreme Court’s July 26, 2023 ruling on R. (on the Application of PACCAR Inc) v Competition Appeal Tribunal [2023] UKSC 28. Mondaq reports that PACCAR has defined “damaged-base agreements” or “DBAs” in the United Kingdom. DBAs are strictly regulated in the UK, now including litigation funding agreement contract law. Many UK courts have operated under the assumption that funding of litigation agreements does not fall under the purview of DBAs. PACCAR’s Supreme Court decision has sparked a fervent debate around this topic. Mondaq says that Hong Kong DBA relevancy differs from the UKs DBA approach. Specifically, in Hong Kong, champerty and maintenance are illegal factors that can lead to a fine and prison sentence. It’s important to note that Hong Kong does allow waivers to the general prohibition of litigation investment if: 1. Third parties share a common interest in funding the outcome of a case. 2. Accessible justice is a prime consideration. 3. Insolvency proceedings are necessary.

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XNY.IO - BANK.ORG: 108 Highlights to The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) Congressional Budget Justification - Fiscal Year 2025
by Gunnar Larson 30 Nov '24

30 Nov '24

XNY.IO - BANK.ORG: 108 Highlights to The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) Congressional Budget Justification - Fiscal Year 2025: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gNz-SmoUpZdG9XxXlJ2ZUk_npxYK5Nkb/view?usp=… ---- FY 2025 DFC Request Executive Summary Program Budget and Policy Objectives The FY 2025 program budget request of $1,008 million will enable DFC to grow its portfolio by addressing the significant unmet financing needs in priority sectors and regions that align with U.S. development and foreign policy objectives. DFC leverages its resources to unlock private sector growth and contribute to bridging the $40+ trillion infrastructure need in the developing world. Congress created DFC through the BUILD Act in part to offer a better and more sustainable alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). DFC catalyzes investment from the private sector and empowers developing countries, helping them leverage their own resources—including human capital and commodities—to tackle poverty, accelerate sustainable economic growth for underserved populations, and become stable U.S. trading partners. Unlike the development approach of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which often burdens countries with unsustainable sovereign debt and projects that are unsuitable for local conditions, DFC’s efforts are directed toward supporting private entities, mobilizing private capital, and building resilient market economies. DFC emphasizes partnership with the private sector and looks for opportunities to support small businesses and underserved communities, with the goal of sustainable growth. DFC’s financing is a cost-effective way to make significant development and strategic impact around the world because DFC’s private investment model allows each dollar of appropriations to go further. In FY 2023, the agency leveraged $622.6 million in program funding to mobilize more than $9.28 billion in support of 132 projects. In three short years since DFC’s inception in FY 2020, the Corporation has achieved 92 percent growth in annual commitments by dollar value and 65 percent growth in the number of projects committed. To remain a competitive alternative to the PRC and other authoritarian governments, DFC will continue to need robust funding in FY 2025 and beyond to counter the aggressive posture that the PRC has taken in emerging markets. The $1,008 million budget request will support a long-term strategy that DFC has developed to focus on five key sectors that help promote vibrant economies, healthy populations, and stable societies. Administrative Expenses DFC requests $245 million for administrative expenses. This level will support necessary staffing and other support costs to advance U.S. development and strategic foreign policy goals. DFC will use the administrative budget to foster an effective and efficient organization, maintain a fiscally responsible agency, and strengthen its portfolio management capacity. Among other priorities, DFC’s FY 2025 funding will support the expansion of DFC’s overseas presence to continue sourcing quality and impactful projects in local markets, increase underwriting capacity to grow DFC’s portfolio, improve monitoring and evaluation of our developmental impact, and scale mission support functions to meet staff growth and the demands of the program. DFC will use administrative resources to attract and retain the skilled and professional workforce needed to achieve its development and foreign policy objectives. DFC will also direct administrative resources toward expanding stakeholder engagement and improving business development. In addition, administrative resources will enable the Corporation to strengthen management and oversight structures, especially for complex and higher value, higher impact transactions, ensuring DFC can manage risks and monitor results in a manner that maximizes the foreign policy and developmental value of its portfolio.

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Bank.org Baby Bond Fund
by Gunnar Larson 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

While people are trying to corner the Mayor of New York City, we all need to keep in mind the books at the United Nations are cooked. xNY.io - Bank.org has went to NY-DFS' Superintendent on the 'cooked books' at the UN, but she must be too busy to care. UNICEF announced a CryptoFund sometime back. The Bank.org Baby Bond Fund was created as a common sense solution to all of this. ----- Bank.org Baby Bond Fund: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RcPD2k0TIv-Ybc1e-Yg56UhN1o0HLx7Knynu7Nr… After surveying the global bond market, ironically there is no notable "world's best baby bond." Bank.org aims to meet the obvious market need for quality innovation in the baby bond economy, by launching the Bank.org Baby Bond Fund. UNICEF launched a CryptoFund as a new financial vehicle allowing UNICEF to receive, hold, and disburse cryptocurrency - a first for the United Nations. From our unique experiences in cryptocurrencies and emerging markets, our vision for the Bank.org Baby Bond Fund is to engage logic, need and opportunity to spark quality innovation in baby bond development. Below are key highlights supporting our vision behind the Bank.org Baby Bond Fund: Today, with over 40% of the world's population under 35, there is no global "kitchen table" baby bond champion. Bank.org is tactically attractive to support and justify leading developed and emerging markets as a global baby bond champion. Geopolitical influences support buy side emerging market dynamics at the heart of Bank.org Baby Bond Fund development. The Bank.org Baby Bond Fund vision is to capture an optimistic growth story, fostering a positive bond value lifecycle trade. Global population sampling summarizes the need for a mature approach to quality baby bond product development, according to UNICEF. Answering a call from UNICEF and UNDP, the Bank.org Baby Bond Fund aims to become the standard child bond financial instrument of value. Operating with the benefit of fundamentals and hindsight, it is highly likely the Bank.org Baby Bond Fund will positively impact the lives of children globally, potentially greater than cryptocurrency innovation.

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Memo #3 - Goldman Sachs Deferred Prosecution Agreement
by Gunnar Larson 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QFZ2sFXx1cSYRcZTOGdPelZbVtuhpHuCKk011Uz… February 21, 2022 BY ELECTRONIC MAIL Mr. John Marzulli United States Department of Justice Eastern District of New York 271 Cadman Plaza East Brooklyn New York, 11201 John.Marzulli(a)usdoj.gov Re: Memo #3 - Goldman Sachs Deferred Prosecution Agreement <https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/file/1329926/download> Dear Mr. Marzulli: The Department of Justice has yet to respond to Memo #1 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OsxfjN3TUepftKklopkQDSMwFWstWozuku4IPPu…> and Memo #2 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BYgCtCf9F7A4YnhN792cTBU6P-pfdaOg0UTRbt…> with our recent inquiry to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad Deferred Agreement. Goldman Sachs' Deferred Prosecution Agreement <https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/goldman-sachs-resolves-foreign-bribery…> with the United States of America is in potential breach, with ethical enforcement being concerned. Memo #3 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QFZ2sFXx1cSYRcZTOGdPelZbVtuhpHuCKk011Uz…> aims to associate malfeasance with Marketplace Manipulation. The 2021 Apple Card Investigation What would Steve Jobs say? xNY.io - Bank.org feels this is one part of a broader discussion we must have about equal credit access. Corruption occurs when the private search for economic advantage and personal advancement clashes with laws and norms that condemn such behavior. Further complicating the picture, some illegal corrupt transactions drain public resources away from education, health care, and effective infrastructure—the kinds of investments that can improve economic performance and raise living standards for all. The cost of corruption is greater than the sum of lost money. Distortions in spending priorities undermine the ability of the state to promote sustainable and inclusive growth. This is possible in a framework already characterized by weak law that creates both a certain alteration of the rules of the market and perverse dynamics distorting the economy and inhibiting free competition. - Goldman Sachs has a history of poor ethical stewardship, at the global level. Similarly, New York's former Governor Andrew Cuomo and NY-DFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell are now world famous for women's rights. - On March 23, 2021, Lacewell published NY-DFS' Findings on Apple Card and its Underwriter Goldman Sachs Bank. Former Superintendent of NY-DFS, Ms. Linda Lacewell's stone faced propaganda assured that Apple Card did not discriminate against women, while under Goldman Sachs management. - The red flags started to appear when an authorized user drew attention to the following: A person who relies on a spouse's access to credit, and only accesses those accounts as an authorized user, may incorrectly believe they have the same credit profile as the spouse. - xNY.io - Bank.org recently collated 61 highlights <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xH16OKyuXzB-MVqIznMWDE9w8RRdmZCw/view> to the Report on Apple Card Investigation from March 2021. Mr. Marzulli, the Apple Card investigation was to assess women's access to equitable finance. March 2021 also saw New York State Attorney General Letitia James' formal green light to launch an independent investigation <https://nypost.com/2021/02/27/second-woman-accuses-gov-andrew-cuomo-of-sexu…> into sexual harassment allegations Lodged against Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Lacewell's legacy is authoring reports disparaging women. The integrity of the Apple Card investigation must be rationally considered as flawed. Likewise, Goldman Sach has a history of unethical posturing on matters specific to women and girls (via global regulatory arbitrage structures). 1. Mr. Marzulli, Peter Oppenheimer is Apple's former CFO and in 2014 joined Goldman Sachs' board of directors and serves on key committees such as Audit (Chair), Governance, Risk. 2. There is no logical reason for Apple to trust the Apple Card Report and Apple’s former CFO is well aware of the legacy of Goldman's unethical antics and regulatory arbitrage frameworks that take advantage of the world's most vulnerable populations. 3. Mr Marzulli, at the very least, it is now clear that New York’s former Superintendent is famous for publishing reports that disperage women. Given the obvious logical factors at play, it may appear that elements of the Deferred Agreement may have been ignored in the facts, figures and assessment of impact on women and girls concerning the Apple Card Report under the former Superintendent. We seek DOJ guidance on the Apple Card Report as a marketplace manipulation instrument. Next, Memo #3, will explore our organization’s management analysis of marketplace manipulation partnering with MoneyGram and Ripple. United States and Africa Marketplace Manipulation Instruments xNY.io - Bank.org feels this is one part of a broader discussion of marketplace manipulation architectures operating from lower Manhattan that potentially function as a cross-border regulatory arbitrage banking operation in the United States and Africa. - MoneyGram, which has about 227,000 global money transfer agent locations in 191 countries and territories, was recapitalized in 2008 (same year as Bitcoin's whitepaper <https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/training/annual-national-train…> ). - Walmart is the only MoneyGram agent, for both the Global Funds Transfer and Financial Paper Products segments, that accounts for more than 10% of revenue. In 2020, Walmart accounted for 13% of total MoneyGram’s revenue and 16% in 2019 and 2018. - Goldman Sachs acquired an equity interest of 63 percent in MoneyGram for about $710 million. Per the 2008 agreement, MoneyGram also received $500 million in debt financing from Goldman Sachs (Cordeiro 2011) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10952410&pre=&suf=&sa=0>. - Goldman Sachs as a MoneyGram investor has a Participation Agreement with Walmart Inc. under which the Investor is obligated to pay Walmart certain percentages of any accumulated cash payments received by the Investor in excess of the Investor's original investment in the Company (MONEYGRAM INTERNATIONAL INC 2021) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10952491&pre=&suf=&sa=0>. - In 2016, Ripple received New York’s First NY-DFS BitLicense for an Institutional Use Case of Digital Assets (Larsen 2016) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10953308&pre=&suf=&sa=0>. Shortly after being NY-DFS accredited, Ripple announced it was teaming up with MoneyGram to test payments using Ripple’s xRP virtual currency. During this time, Ripple was making headlines as the xRP digital currency had surged — and fallen — dramatically (Browne 2018) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10953324&pre=&suf=&sa=0>. Soon after, Ripple announced a $50 million investment in MoneyGram snagging a 10% equity stake in the firm. Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s CEO, added that his firm would support MoneyGram’s “further expansion” into the European and Australian payment corridors (De 2019) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10953333&pre=&suf=&sa=0>. Connecting the dots, MoneyGram is now one of the most expensive transfer providers (Tierney 2019) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10953437&pre=&suf=&sa=0> on planet Earth. Customers incur fees for postal mail, telephone calls, electronic mail, and other computerized messaging services. - Computer crimes as a threat is no less a threat because it is contingent, because the speaker does not intend or is unable to carry it out when the threat was not directly communicated to the MoneyGram customer as a target, or because the language used might be considered cryptic or ambiguously not part of the current New York BitLicense mandate. - Ripple simply made MoneyGram’s business more efficient, thus accruing more profits for Goldman Sachs directed out of Manhattan. - From 2019 - 2020, MoneyGram received more than $40 million in market development fees from Ripple Labs in return for providing liquidity to its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) network. It can be calculated that 10%-15% of the proceeds came from Walmart customers, who are some of the most disenfranchised Americans financially. Over the last five years, through conscious organizational HR management, Goldman Sachs created layer upon layer of New York BitLicense-related disguises and cross-border systems under potential conspiracy and plausible deniability to computer crimes and marketplace manipulation. Goldman Sachs' various direct and/or indirect BitLicensee connections profit daily from virtual currency market manipulation computer crimes with cross-border reach, operating as a large syndicate group from lower Manhattan. New York banks have a long and profitable history of exploiting regulatory arbitrage. Similar to the MoneyGram instance, some evidence shows that Goldman Sachs also seems to have entered Africa. - What is astonishing is that Ripple is powering some of www.JUMO.World’s <http://www.jumo.world> bank customers (Ripple 2020) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10959408&pre=&suf=&sa=0>, in a troublesome manner similar to MoneyGram. - Given that several enforcement actions and lawsuits in the United States specifically targeted banks’ treatment of minority borrowers (Taibbi 2014 ) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10961062&pre=&suf=&sa=0>, it may not be surprising to learn of www.Jumo.World or “JUMO” (Buchak et al. 2017) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10956108&pre=&suf=&sa=0> - A domain extension, in this case “.World” domain, is the targeted subject area of a computer program. It is a term used in software engineering (Wikipedia 2021) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10968017&pre=&suf=&sa=0>: During the fourth quarter of 2018, JUMO successfully finalized a $65 million capital raise that was led by Goldman Sachs in New York. JUMO is a full technology software stack for building and running financial services, targeted at the world’s most disadvantaged populations. Today, JUMO operates across numerous African markets including Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, and most recently in Pakistan, with plans to expand further across the sub-continent. 1. Since its launch in 2014, more than 15 million people have saved or borrowed on the JUMO platform, with over $1.6 billion in funds disbursed to customers. Nearly 70% of JUMO’s customers are micro and small business owners. 2. JUMO targets the unbanked population across several emerging and developing markets. A variety of JUMO’s partnerships with leading banks and mobile network operators creates a marketplace where consumers can access financial services and banks can access a new pool of mobile money customers (Vostok Emerging Finance Ltd 2020) <https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=10955874&pre=&suf=&sa=0>. 3. Given the regulatory environment in Africa, it could be suggested that from New York, Goldman Sachs and Ripple’s organizational HR management structures once again aim to profit from some of the most vulnerable of the human population. Memo #1 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OsxfjN3TUepftKklopkQDSMwFWstWozuku4IPPu…>, Memo #2 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BYgCtCf9F7A4YnhN792cTBU6P-pfdaOg0UTRbt…> and Memo #3 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QFZ2sFXx1cSYRcZTOGdPelZbVtuhpHuCKk011Uz…> profile instances that correspond with potential breaches to the Deferred Agreement that are impacting our global enterprise. Finally, we have made 28 highlights to Deferred Agreement <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yx88RMoeLyyfbNK0RtPl4r-m8N21_1Sp/view?usp=…> as a reference resource tool. We are looking forward to learning more about the DOJ’s approach to assessing any potential breaches to the Deferred Agreement’s mandates. Respectfully yours with anticipation, Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xny.io> | Bank.org <http://bank.org>MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107

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xNY.io - Bank.org | DOJ Memo #2 - Goldman Sachs Deferred Prosecution Agreement
by Gunnar Larson 29 Nov '24

29 Nov '24

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BYgCtCf9F7A4YnhN792cTBU6P-pfdaOg0UTRbt… February 1, 2022 BY ELECTRONIC MAIL Mr. John Marzulli United States Department of Justice Eastern District of New York 271 Cadman Plaza East Brooklyn New York, 11201 John.Marzulli(a)usdoj.gov Re: Memo #2 - Goldman Sachs Deferred Prosecution Agreement <https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/file/1329926/download> Dear Mr. Marzulli: The Department of Justice has yet to respond to Memo #1 with our recent inquiry <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OsxfjN3TUepftKklopkQDSMwFWstWozuku4IPPu…> to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad Deferred Agreement. Goldman Sachs' Deferred Prosecution Agreement <https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/goldman-sachs-resolves-foreign-bribery…> with the United States of America is in potential breach, with ethical enforcement being concerned. Memo #2 aims to associate the malfeasance in Malaysia with the Middle East. The Bank of London vs. The Bank of London and the Middle East - November 30, 2021 two New York based firms lead investment in The Bank of London based in the United Kingdom. - July 1, 2007 The Bank of London and the Middle East opened in the United Kingdom. - The Bank of London and the Middle East confirms they have no association with The Bank of London (correspondence referenced here <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZLYO6qxOX5TIn0kPd69SQbvG-mn0I5R_/view?usp=…> ). The Bank of London seemingly has been funded from New York to irritate the Middle East. Recently, we made 91 highlights of research <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O2piNMJ3CI0wbfaFW33to3KhgOgZ8-dl/view?usp=…> associated with The Bank of London and the Middle East's recent sale to a firm in Kuwait. Harvey Schwartz is the Chairperson at The Bank of London, after spending over 20 years at Goldman Sachs Group, where he oversaw sales and trading, finance, technology, and operations. He completed his tenure as the firm’s President and Co-Chief Operating Officer. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1997 and subsequently held numerous senior leadership positions including Chief Financial Officer, Global Co-Head of the Securities Division, amongst other positions. He additionally served as a member of the firm’s Management Committee and co-headed its Risk Committee, Steering Committee on Regulatory Reform and Finance Committee. Mr. Schwartz established the firm’s Investment Policy Committee on which he also served as a member. It would appear that Mr. Schwartz has no friendly diplomatic agenda in London banking, potentially looking to profit off of The Bank of London and the Middle East. Furthermore, Goldman Sachs seemingly has a part in the scheme from New York. Bank of London and the Middle East is listed on the NASDAQ, Dubai. - Mr. Marzulli, during a recent telephone discussion together it was your general assessment that the Deferred Agreement in question was self policing. Can you kindly advise at your earliest convenience what (if any) DOJ systems, processes and control mechanisms are in place to monitor the purity of the Deferred Agreement? - Furthermore, if the Deferred Agreement is self-policing, can the DOJ kindly share any and all supporting material information that would prevent the agreement from being violated without the DOJ's general oversight? - Finally, we have made 28 highlights to Deferred Agreement <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yx88RMoeLyyfbNK0RtPl4r-m8N21_1Sp/view?usp=…> as a reference resource tool. Memo #1 and Memo #2 both outline instances that correspond with the associated highlight references. We are concerned that potential breaches to the Deferred Agreement are impacting our global enterprise. We are looking forward to learning more about the DOJ’s approach to assessing any potential breaches to the Deferred Agreement’s mandates. Respectfully yours with anticipation, Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xny.io> | Bank.org <http://bank.org>MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107

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Does Short-selling Discipline Earnings Manipulation? Disciplined Short Sellers Handbook (W/58 Highlights Attached)
by Gunnar Larson 26 Nov '24

26 Nov '24

Does Short-selling Discipline Earnings Manipulation? xNY.io - Bank.org recently collated international graduate scholar working notes coining the "Crypto Computer Crimes Manual <https://drive.google.com/file/d/11tbgHgDg8qagomO-NBffvIFpxXKmBC3g/view?usp=…>" as per best disclosure practices to illustrate various potential scenarios when market conditions are met and a Board of Directors potentially exploits blockchain technological software innovation with forecastable reckless consequences. The Disciplined Short Sellers Handbook serves as a Manual supplement ... Detailing the hypothesis that short-selling has a disciplining role vis-à-vis the managers forcing them to reduce earning manipulation. Across 33 countries, the Handbook documents a significantly negative relationship between lending supply and activism in the short sell market and earnings manipulation. Collectively, findings suggest that short selling provides an external governance mechanism to discipline managerial incentives. xNY.io highlights that the authors of the faculty and research study confirm the main hypotheses and provide evidence of a beneficial effect of the short-selling market on the corporate market. In other words, short-selling generates a disciplining effect similar to the effect produced by the contestability of the firm in the context of M&As. In this regard, short selling contributes not only to the information environment of the market but also to the contracting institutions of the real economy. Suggesting that in general the disciplining role of short-selling is the strongest for firms with weak internal governance or less transparent information environments. We share 58 highlights to the Handbook <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aLcmN5c2PJiqHYR5dy8C8qMNVyclw8lu/view?usp=…> as a disclosure technique, foreshadowing xNY.io's disciplined approach to trading in the near term (subject to regulatory scrutiny).

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Video: Put the puck in the back of the net, Gunnar
by Gunnar Larson 25 Nov '24

25 Nov '24

Video: Put the puck in the back of the net, Gunnar https://www.instagram.com/p/C3VWQBasHan/?igsh=MXg0aTlseHN4b2UxNQ==

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492 Highlights to UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA CASE NO. 22-CV-14102-MIDDLEBROOKS DONALD J. TRUMP, Plaintiff, v. HILLARY R. CLINTON, et al., Defendants. ____________________
by Gunnar Larson 24 Nov '24

24 Nov '24

INTRODUCTION March 24, 2022 158 Highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zggK7lgptlZ6Qn11EndzbDloqqVxRifv/view?usp=… 1. In the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot – one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation’s democracy. Acting in concert, the Defendants maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty. The actions taken in furtherance of their scheme—falsifying evidence, deceiving law enforcement, and exploiting access to highly-sensitive data sources - are so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison. 2. Under the guise of ‘opposition research,’ ‘data analytics,’ and other political stratagems, the Defendants nefariously sought to sway the public’s trust. They worked together with a single, self-serving purpose: to vilify Donald J. Trump. Indeed, their far-reaching conspiracy was designed to cripple Trump’s bid for presidency by fabricating a scandal that would be used to trigger an unfounded federal investigation and ignite a media frenzy. 3. The scheme was conceived, coordinated and carried out by top-level officials at the Clinton Campaign and the DNC—including ‘the candidate’ herself—who attempted to shield her involvement behind a wall of third parties.1 To start, the Clinton Campaign and the DNC enlisted the assistance of their shared counsel, Perkins Coie, a law firm with deep Democrat ties, in the hopes of obscuring their actions under the veil of attorney-client privilege. Perkins Coie was tasked with spearheading the scheme to find—or fabricate—proof of a sinister link between Donald J. Trump and Russia. To do so, Perkins Coie launched parallel operations: on one front, Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias led an effort to produce spurious ‘opposition research’ claiming to reveal illicit ties between the Trump Campaign and Russian operatives; on a separate front, Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann headed a campaign to develop misleading evidence of a bogus ‘back channel’ connection between e-mail servers at Trump Tower and a Russian-owned bank. 4. Marc Elias, in his mission to obtain derogatory anti-Trump ‘opposition research,’ commissioned Fusion GPS, an investigative firm, and its co-founders, Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson, and directed them to dredge up evidence—actual or otherwise—of collusion between Trump and Russia. Fritsch and Simpson, in turn, enlisted the assistance of Orbis Ltd. and its owner, Christopher Steele, to produce a series of reports purporting to contain proof of the supposed collusion. Of course, the now fully debunked collection of reports, known as the “Steele Dossier,” was riddled with misstatements, misrepresentations and, most of all, flat out lies. In truth, the Steele Dossier was largely based upon information provided to Steele by his primary sub-source, Igor Danchenko, who was subsequently indicted for falsifying his claims. Even more damning, Danchenko had close ties to senior Clinton Campaign official, Charles Halliday Dolan, Jr., who knowingly provided false information to Danchenko, who relayed it to Steele, who reported it in the Steele Dossier and eagerly fed the deceptions to both the media and the FBI. This duplicitous arrangement existed for a singular self-serving purpose – to discredit Donald J. Trump and his campaign. 5. At the same time, Michael Sussmann, in his hunt for damaging intel against the Trump Campaign, turned to Neustar, Inc., an information technology company, and one of its top executives, Rodney Joffe, a fervent anti-Trumper who had recently been promised a high-ranking position with the Clinton Administration, to exploit their access to non-public data in search of a secret “back channel” connection between Trump Tower and Alfa Bank. When it was discovered that no such channel existed, the Defendants resorted to truly subversive measures – hacking servers at Trump Tower, Trump’s private apartment, and, most alarmingly, the White House. This ill-gotten data was then manipulated to create a misleading “inference” and submitted to law enforcement in an effort to falsely implicate Donald J. Trump and his campaign.2 All of these acts were carried out in coordination with the Clinton Campaign and the DNC, at the behest of certain Democratic “VIPs.”3 6. While their multi-pronged attack was underway, the Defendants seized on the opportunity to publicly malign Donald J. Trump by instigating a full-blown media frenzy. Indeed, the Clinton Campaign and DNC—admittedly on a “mission” to “raise the alarm” about their contrived Trump-Russia link4—repeatedly fed disinformation to the media and shamelessly promoted their false narratives. All the while, Hillary Clinton, Jake Sullivan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and others did their best to proliferate the spread of those dubious and false claims through press releases, social media, and other public statements. 7. The fallout from the Defendants’ actions was not limited to the public denigration of Trump and his campaign. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—relying on the Defendants’ fraudulent evidence—commenced a large-scale investigation and expended precious time, resources and taxpayer dollars looking into the spurious allegation that the Trump Campaign had colluded with the Russian Government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The effects of this unfounded investigation were prolonged and exacerbated by the presence of a small faction of Clinton loyalists who were well-positioned within the Department of Justice and the FBI – James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and Bruce Ohr. These government officials were willing to abuse their positions of public trust to advance the baseless probe to new levels, including obtaining an extrajudicial FISA warrant and instigating the commencement of an oversight investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. As a result, Donald J. Trump and his campaign were forced to expend tens of millions of dollars in legal fees to defend against these contrived and unwarranted proceedings. Justice would ultimately prevail – following a two-year investigation, Special Counsel Mueller went on to exonerate Donald J. Trump and his campaign with his finding that there was no evidence of collusion with Russia. 8. The full extent of the Defendants’ wrongdoing has been steadily and gradually exposed by Special Counsel John Durham, who has been heading a DOJ investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia conspiracy. To date, he has already issued indictments to Sussmann and Danchenko, among others, for proffering false statements to law enforcement officials. As outlined below, these ‘speaking’ indictments not only implicate many of the Defendants named herein but also provide a great deal of insight into the inner-workings of the Defendants’ conspiratorial enterprise. Based on recent developments and the overall direction of Durham’s investigation, it seems all but certain that additional indictments are forthcoming. 9. In short, the Defendants, blinded by political ambition, orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton. When their gambit failed, and Donald J. Trump was elected, the Defendants’ efforts continued unabated, merely shifting their focus to undermining his presidential administration. Worse still, the Defendants continue to spread their vicious lies to this day as they unabashedly publicize their thoroughly debunked falsehoods in an effort to ensure that he will never be elected again. The deception, malice, and treachery perpetrated by the Defendants has caused significant harm to the American people, and to the Plaintiff, Donald J. Trump, and they must be held accountable for their heinous acts. ____________________ BACKGROUND September 8, 2022 190 Highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JUQtPF8f6ckSRHwLcu3S_joyF5xQoA-A/view?usp=… Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit on March 24, 2022, alleging that “the Defendants, blinded by political ambition, orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.” (DE 177, Am. Compl. ¶ 9). On this general premise, Plaintiff brings a claim for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), predicated on the theft of trade secrets, obstruction of justice, and wire fraud (Count I). He additionally brings claims for: injurious falsehood (Count III); malicious prosecution (Count V); violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) (Count VII); theft of trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (“DTSA”) (Count VIII); and violations of the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”) (Count IX). The Amended Complaint also contains counts for various conspiracy charges and theories of agency and vicarious liability. (Counts II, IV, VI, and X–XVI). Plaintiff’s theory of this case, set forth over 527 paragraphs in the first 118 pages of the Amended Complaint, is difficult to summarize in a concise and cohesive manner. It was certainly not presented that way. Nevertheless, I will attempt to distill it here. The short version: Plaintiff alleges that the Defendants “[a]cting in concert . . . maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty.” (Am. Compl. ¶ 1). The Defendants effectuated this alleged conspiracy through two core efforts. “[O]n one front, Perkins Coie partner Mark Elias led an effort to produce spurious ‘opposition research’ claiming to reveal illicit ties between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.” (Id. ¶ 3). To that end, Defendant Hillary Clinton and her campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and lawyers for the Campaign and the Committee allegedly hired Defendant Fusion GPS to fabricate the Steele Dossier. (Id. ¶ 4). “[O]n a separate front, Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussman headed a campaign to develop misleading evidence of a bogus ‘back channel’ connection between e-mail servers at Trump Tower and a Russian- owned bank.” (Id.). Clinton and her operatives allegedly hired Defendant Rodney Joffe to exploit his access to Domain Name Systems (“DNS”) data, via Defendant Neustar, to investigate and ultimately manufacture a suspicious pattern of activity between Trump-related servers and a Russian bank with ties to Vladimir Putin, Alfa Bank. (Id. ¶ 3). As a result of this “fraudulent evidence,” the Federal Bureau of Investigations (“FBI”) commenced “several large-scale investigations,” which were “prolonged and exacerbated by the presence of a small faction of Clinton loyalists who were well-positioned within the Department of Justice”—Defendants James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and Bruce Ohr. (Id. ¶ 7). And while this was ongoing, the Defendants allegedly “seized on the opportunity to publicly malign Donald J. Trump by instigating a full-blown media frenzy.” (Id. ¶ 6). As a result of this “multi-pronged attack,” Plaintiff claims to have amassed $24 million in damages.1(Id. ¶ 527). Defendants now move to dismiss the Amended Complaint as “a series of disconnected political disputes that Plaintiff has alchemized into a sweeping conspiracy among the many individuals Plaintiff believes to have aggrieved him.” (DE 226 at 1). They argue that dismissal is warranted because Plaintiff’s claims are both “hopelessly stale”—that is, foreclosed by the applicable statutes of limitations—and because they fail on the merits “in multiple independent respects.” (Id. at 2). As they view it, “[w]hatever the utilities of [the Amended Complaint] as a fundraising tool, a press release, or a list of political grievances, it has no merit as a lawsuit.” (Id.). I agree. In the discussion that follows, I first address the Amended Complaint’s structural deficiencies. I then turn to subject matter jurisdiction and the personal jurisdiction arguments raised by certain Defendants. Finally, I assess the sufficiency of the allegations as to each of the substantive counts. ____________________ BACKGROUND October 31, 2022 25 Highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QynNCV7iSPi-8b6dt605jmFTTNSaXtuD/view?usp=… PlaintifP’s pleadings and theories were obviously and fatally defective from the very inceptionof this action. Plaintiff's initial Complaint spanned 108 pages and S08 paragraphs. DE 1 (March 24, 2022). It named 28 individual defendants, as well as 10 John Does and 10 ABC Corporations. /d. Less than a month after the Complaint was filed, Hillary Clinton moved to dismiss it with prejudice. DE 52 (Apr. 20,2022). Defendant Clinton’s motion identified manyofthe fundamentalfactual deficiencies and legal flaws that would ultimately lead this Court to dismiss the Amended Complaint: namely, (1) that Plaintifs claims were untimely on their face, DE 52 at 1-5; (2) that Plaintiff's own tweets confirmed his knowledge ofhis supposed claimsno later than October 2017, DE 52 at 2-3; (3) that Plaintiffs Complaint was replete with inadequate and conclusory allegations, DE 52 at 6; (4) that Plaintiff failed to allege a RICO enterprise, DE 52 at 7; (5) that Plaintiff failed to allege the predicate act of theft of trade secrets based on DNS information, DE 52 at 8-9; (6) thatPlaintifffailedtoallege the predicate act ofobstructionofjustice in part because he identified no “official proceeding,” DE 52 at 9-10; (7) that Plaintiff failed to allege a patter of racketeering activity, DE 52 at 11-12; (8) that Plaintiff failed to adequately allege RICO standing because his supposed injuries were almostentirely undescribed, DE 52.at 12-14; (9) that Plaintiffs injurious falsehood claim was barred by the First Amendment, DE 52 at 15-17; (10) that Plaintiff failed to allege almost every necessary clementof injurious falsehood under Florida law, DE 52 at 17-18; (11) that Plaintiff failed to allege a malicious prosecution claim as to any official proceeding and, in particular, as to the properly predicated Crossfire Hurricane investigation, DE 52 at 19-20; and (12) that Plaintiff failed to allege a claim for “agency” because it is not an independent cause of action under Florida law. In response, Plaintiff's counsel indicated that they planned to amend the Complaint. DE 66 (Apr. 21, 2022). Defendant Clinton did not oppose counsel's request for an extension of time in whichto amend. See, e.g., DE 102 (Apr. 27,2022). In the intervening period, other Defendants joined Clinton's motion to dismiss and filed their own motions alertingPlaintiff and his counsel to additional fatal defects in the Complaint. See DE 124 (John Podesta), 139 (Peter Fritsch, Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson); 141 (DNC Services Corporation, Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz); 143 (Perkins Coie); 144 (Nellie Ohr); 145 (Robby Mook): 146 (Michael Sussmann); 147 (Mare Elias); 149 (HFACC); 157 (Rodney Joffe); 159 (Igor Danchenko); 160 (Neustar, Inc.); 162 & 163 (Charles Halliday Dolan, Jr.); 165 (Jake Sullivan). With respect to each motion, Plaintiff's counsel indicated that they planned to amend in response to the motions, and Defendants did not oppose extensionsof time to allow them to do so. See DE 153 (May 17,2022). PlaintifP’s counsel filed the Amended Complaint approximately two months after receiving Defendant Clinton’s motion to dismiss and with the benefit of Defendants” additional motions in the interim. DE 177 (June 21, 2022). “But despite this briefing, PlaintifPs Amended Complaint failed to cureanyofthe deficiencies.”DE 267 at 63-64 (Sept. 8, 2022) (“0p.”). “Instead, Plaintiff added eighty new pages of largely irrelevant allegations that did nothing to salvage the legal sufficiency of his claims.” Op. at 64. The Amended Complaint is “193 pages in length, with 819 numbered paragraphs,” and “contains 14 counts, names 31 defendants, 10 “John Does” described as fictitious and unknown persons, and 10 *ABC Corporations’ identified as fictitious and unknown entities.” Op. at 4. ____________________ BACKGROUND November 10, 2022 66 Highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ppCsJe6sSJKIionWtII4rI4qRMbKzBn3/view?usp=… The Complaint. In March 2022, Charles Dolan was among 29 defendants initially sued by Mr. Trump. (DE 1). He was identified as a former chairman of the DNC, a senior official in the Clinton Campaign, and a close associate of and advisor to Hillary Clinton. The Complaint alleged that in April 2016, Mr. Dolan participated in discussions about the creation of a “dossier” to smear Mr. Trump and disseminate false accusations to the media (Compl. ¶ 79), and at the direction of Ms. Clinton assisted in preparation of the dossier (Compl. ¶ 81). According to the Complaint, an allegation contained within the dossier that Mr. Trump engaged in salacious sexual activity in a Moscow hotel was derived from Mr. Dolan. (Compl. ¶ 91). Mr. Dolan was sued for RICO conspiracy (Count II), conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood (Count IV), and conspiracy to commit malicious prosecution (Count VI). The Warning Letter. On May 31, 2022, counsel for Mr. Dolan wrote the attorneys for Mr. Trump. They warned: 1. That Mr. Dolan had no role in any conspiracy related to the Steele dossier. 2. That Mr. Dolan was not a source for the allegations of sexual activity. 3. That Mr. Dolan had not been in contact with any defendant other than Igor Danchenko, and that Mr. Dolan’s contacts with Mr. Danchenko involved business interests and help for a conference in Moscow. 4. That Mr. Dolan had never been chairman of the DNC. 5. That Ms. Clinton was on record through a spokesperson as stating she had no recollection of Mr. Dolan. (DE 268-1). The letter requested that Mr. Dolan not be named as a defendant in any forthcoming Amended Complaint. The letter further warned that if he were to be named, or if he was not dropped from the original Complaint, Rule 11 sanctions would be sought. The Amended Complaint. On June 21, 2022, Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint, as had been expected. It ballooned to 193 pages, 819 paragraphs and 31 defendants. With respect to Mr. Dolan, the allegations remained essentially the same. But in the Amended Complaint, Mr. Dolan was identified somewhat more vaguely as the former chairman of a “national Democratic political organization.” (Am. Compl. ¶ 96). Elsewhere, he was described as a “senior Clinton Campaign Official.” (Am. Compl. ¶ 4). Moreover, and somewhat inexplicably, Mr. Dolan was identified in the Amended Complaint as a citizen and resident of New York, despite a declaration that Mr. Dolan had provided to Plaintiff’s lawyers explaining that Mr. Dolan was a resident of Virginia. (Am. Compl. ¶ 20; DE 268-2). The Sanctions Motion and Memorandum. On July 15, 2022, Mr. Dolan served on Mr. Trump’s lawyers a motion seeking sanctions pursuant to Rule 11. The motion pointed out that the change in Mr. Dolan’s purported title from “former chairman of the DNC” in the original Complaint to “former chairman of a national Democratic political organization,” in the Amended Complaint did not solve the problems identified in the warning letter because Mr. Dolan had never been the chairman of any such organization. The motion further explained that Mr. Dolan’s role in the Clinton Campaign was limited to knocking on doors as a volunteer. The motion also stated that Mr. Dolan had never been a resident of New York, that Mr. Dolan had told Plaintiff’s lawyers so, and that the allegations of the Amended Complaint to that effect demonstrated a lack of diligence over something easily checked. Mr. Dolan’s motion for sanctions went on to place the Trump lawyers on notice of a critical failure in their claims, warning them that the Danchenko Indictment referenced throughout the Amended Complaint not only failed to support their allegations against Mr. Dolan but contradicted them. That warning continues to be unheeded. ____________________ BACKGROUND January 19, 2023 53 Highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sf0y-bIBdwaa1PO0Y3hKWhhImoXXCfbR/view?usp=… Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit on March 24, 2022, alleging that “the Defendants, blinded by political ambition, orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hope of destroying his life, his political career, and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.” (DE 1 ¶ 9). The next day, Alina Habba, Mr. Trump’s lead counsel told Fox News’ Sean Hannity: You can’t make this up. You literally cannot make a story like this up . . . and President Trump is just not going to take it anymore. If you are going to make up lies, if you are going to try to take him down, he is going to fight you back. And that is what this is, this is the beginning of all that.1 She then explained on Newsmax: What the real goal [of the suit] is, is democracy, is continuing to make sure that our elections, continuing to make sure our justice system is not obstructed by political enemies. That cannot happen. And that’s exactly what happened. They obstructed justice. They continued the false narrative . . . This grand scheme, that you could not make up, to take down an opponent. That is un-American.2 On April 20, 2022, less than a month after the Complaint was filed, Hillary Clinton moved for dismissal with prejudice. Her motion identified substantial and fundamental factual and legal flaws. Each of the other Defendants followed suit, pointing to specific problems with the claims against them. The problems in the Complaint were obvious from the start. They were identified by the Defendants not once but twice, and Mr. Trump persisted anyway. Despite this briefing and the promise “to cure any deficiencies,” Plaintiff’s counsel filed the Amended Complaint on June 21, 2022. (DE 177). The Amended Complaint failed to cure any of the defects. See DE 267, Order of Dismissal (September 8, 2022). Instead, Plaintiff added eighty new pages of largely irrelevant allegations that did nothing to salvage the legal sufficiency of his claims. (DE 267 at 64). The Amended Complaint is 193 pages in length, with 819 numbered paragraphs, and contains 14 counts, names 31 defendants, 10 John Does described as fictitious and unknown persons, and 10 ABC Corporations identified as fictitious and unknown entities. On July 14, 2022, the United States moved pursuant to the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2679 (d)(i), to substitute itself as Defendant for James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Kevin Clinesmith. (DE 224). On July 21, 2022, I granted the motion to substitute. (DE 234). On September 8, 2022, I dismissed the case with prejudice as to all Defendants except for the United States. 3 I issued a detailed and lengthy Order, which I incorporate by reference here. (DE 267). I found that fatal substantive defects which had been clearly laid out in the first round of briefing, precluded the Plaintiff from proceeding under any of the theories presented. I found that the Amended Complaint was a quintessential shotgun pleading, that its claims were foreclosed by existing precedent, and its factual allegations were undermined and contradicted by the public reports and filings upon which it purported to rely. I reserved jurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions. Undeterred by my Order and two rounds of briefing by multiple defendants, Ms. Habba continued to advance Plaintiff’s claims. In a September 10, 2022, interview with Sean Hannity, the host asked her “Why isn’t [Hillary Clinton] being held accountable for what she did?” Ms. Habba’s response reiterated misrepresentations on which this lawsuit was based: Because when you have a Clinton judge as we did here, Judge Middlebrooks who I had asked to recuse himself but insisted that he didn’t need to, he was going to be impartial, and then proceeds to write a 65-page scathing order where he basically ignored every factual basis which was backed up by indictments, by investigations, the Mueller report, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, not to mention Durham, and all the testimony we heard there, we get dismissed. Not only do we get dismissed, he says that this is not the proper place for recourse for Donald Trump. He has no legal ramifications. Where what [sic] is the proper place for him? Because the FBI won’t help when you can do anything, obstruct justice, blatantly lie to the FBI, Sussmann’s out, he gets acquitted, where do you go? That’s the concern for me, where do you get that -- that recourse?4 She also indicated that, while Mr. Trump doubted the suit would succeed, she nevertheless “fought” to pursue it: You know, I have to share with you a story, Sean, that I have not shared with anybody. The recourse that I have at this point is obviously to appeal this to the 11th Circuit as Gregg said. But when I brought this case and we were assigned you know, this judge and we went through the recusal process, we lost five magistrates, including Reinhart [sic] who’s dealing with the boxes as we know. The former president looked at me and he told me, you know what Alina. You’re not going to win. You can’t win, just get rid of it, don’t do the case. And I said, no, we have to fight. It’s not right what happened. And you know, he was right, and it’s a sad day for me personally because I fought him on [it] and I should have listened, but I don’t want to lose hope in our system. I don’t. So, you know I’m deciding whether we’re going to appeal it.5 Defendants now move to recover attorneys’ fees and costs under Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, 28 U.S.C. § 1927, the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and/or this Court’s inherent power. (DE 280 at 1). In Part II, I find that a sanction under this Court’s inherent power is appropriate. I do so by examining Plaintiff’s (and his lawyers’) conduct throughout this litigation. In Part III, I look to Plaintiff’s conduct in other cases. And in Part IV, I determine the reasonableness of Defendants’ attorneys’ fees and costs.

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Adrienne Harris Is Crypto’s Most Powerful Regulator
by Gunnar Larson 24 Nov '24

24 Nov '24

THE MONEY GAME MAR. 30, 2022 Crypto’s Most Powerful Regulator Is Here Adrienne Harris, New York’s financial watchdog, has enormous sway over the industry’s future. By Kevin T. Dugan, staff writer at Intelligencer, who covers money and business Photo: Victor Llorente Thirteen years after the birth of cryptocurrency, it was supposed to be time for Washington to rein it in. Instead, the White House punted, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is still hashing out how it’s going to oversee the $2 trillion industry. State watchdogs have filled that vacuum, making Adrienne Harris, the head of the New York State Department of Financial Services, by default the most powerful crypto regulator in the country. While states such as Florida and Wyoming have adopted a laissez-faire approach to regulation, attracting a sizable chunk of the booming industry, more money and jobs are still flowing into New York than any other city, making it the de facto crypto capital of the U.S. “There’s a misconception that having rigorous regulation turns off innovative companies,” Harris tells me during an hour-long interview at her office looking out onto the Statue of Liberty last month. “That hasn’t been our experience here.” Sign up for Dinner Party A lively evening newsletter about everything that just happened. SIGN UP Harris was tapped as the first Black woman to lead DFS last year. She came into her position after a turn working in Silicon Valley and representing Wall Street banks, a résumé that critics have used to paint her as too close to the industries she is regulating. She’s eager to dispel any criticism that she’s soft as a regulator, especially when it comes to crypto. Harris says she’s looking to expand the agency’s remit, hire new regulators, and possibly watch over lending and asset management in decentralized finance, a.k.a. DeFi, one of the fastest-growing crypto industries, which has been prone to very large hacks. The agency’s power over the industry lies mostly with the BitLicense, a required if unloved permit for crypto exchanges to operate within state lines. When it was first introduced in 2014, it was meant to be a model for the country, but the crypto industry has attacked the license for being too strict, limiting what people can trade, and requiring expensive anti-money-laundering operations, which, it should be noted, most traditional financial institutions are required to maintain. For Harris, the problem isn’t that it’s too restrictive — it’s that the process of getting one, which has stretched years for some companies, is too slow. “If you think about the companies that are BitLicensees, and even the companies in the queue, having the imprimatur of ‘Have you passed regulatory muster with a stringent regulatory regime?’ — I think the good actors see that as a good thing,” she says. Created in 2011, DFS has been a regulator feared more than any of its counterparts in other states for the power it has over banks, insurance companies, and a host of other financial institutions. It brought ambitious money-laundering cases against banks like BNP Paribas (a settlement that resulted in several bankers losing their jobs), fined Deutsche Bank for its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and levied a $2.5 million fine on the National Rifle Association for selling its so-called murder insurance in the state. “DFS has a lot of teeth, and the sky’s the limit if the agency is exercised properly,” says state Sen. John Liu of Queens, a member of the state finance committee. “DFS compelled multinational banks to cough up $15 billion. We were able to build a couple bridges with that money. We still have much infrastructure in the state of New York that might benefit from DFS’s vigorous functions.” But part of DFS’s mandate is to keep the state’s economy healthy, a balancing act when it means protecting consumers from predatory, but also lucrative, companies. “For me, it’s an opportunity to bring my lived experience as a woman of color,” Harris says. So far, she has established the agency’s first climate division, frozen fees for check-cashing businesses that target the poor, and looked into non-bank lenders for evidence of redlining. “It’s important to me that those voices are at the table and being heard,” she says. “I bring a sort of pragmatism. It’s one thing to sit in our offices with nice views and make policy, but it’s another thing, in my mind, to really run the water through the pipes.” In 2008, Harris joined Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm so close with Goldman Sachs that it has long sent its lawyers to work in-house at the investment bank. It was there that she worked for H. Rodgin “Rodge” Cohen, then the law firm’s chairman and the so-called trauma surgeon of Wall Street. Cohen remembers Harris working late into the night writing near-flawless memorandums so they’d be ready on his desk in the morning. “She just brought what I’d call a penetrating intelligence to the problems that were at hand,” Cohen tells me. “Many of the problems we get, you cannot just look up the answer in a book. It’s a question of judgment and trying to apply rules written often for other circumstances.” Still, it was clear that corporate law wasn’t for her. “Her heart was really in public service,” he says. From there, she went on to work for the Treasury Department, then the Obama White House, where she focused on policies around the then-upstart fintech industry. After the administration turned over, Harris took a spin through the revolving door between government and business. Her New York financial-disclosure forms show a superabundance of work with the tech and finance industries: She sat on the boards of six companies and nonprofits, including LendingClub, which had recently settled with the Federal Trade Commission over claims it had misled users on fees. She also advised 11 companies, owned two, and invested in or on behalf of two others. “I just thought, well, if you’re going to make policy about it, you should do the thing — run the company, build the company,” she says. “At the time, I felt very comfortable going to a start-up because I thought, well, coming out of government, you’re not making a ton of money. And if this start-up blows up, I’ll probably be no worse off, financially speaking.” It seems Harris did well enough. One real-estate tech company at which she worked went public last summer, and Harris appears to have cashed out. Since the disclosures were for 2020, they didn’t include her stake in Forethought, a private A.I.-based customer-service company that announced in December that it had attracted such investors as Harris, Ashton Kutcher, and Gwenyth Paltrow. When I asked her about Forethought, Harris said her investment in the company predated her time at DFS, that all her investments are now in a blind trust, and that she would recuse herself from any dealings with companies she has conflicts with. So when Hochul appointed Harris to lead DFS, she was attacked by the left. Zephyr Teachout and Cynthia Nixon both criticized Harris as being insufficiently independent, thanks to her connections in tech and finance. The American Prospect dug up a speech in which she characterized regulators as looking for “no-nos” and “icky things.” Harris has also advised the cash-advance companies Earnin, Brigit, and SmartWage (based in South Africa), according to her disclosures. In 2019, DFS led a multi-state investigation into the cash-advance industry over whether they created debt traps and state banking and anti-usury laws, since equivalent interest rates for the fees they charged would reach as high as 469 percent. A person directly familiar with the investigation told me that Harris’s predecessor was presented with multiple options for furthering the investigation, including reaching a settlement, but ultimately never made a decision. DFS wouldn’t comment. So, of all the companies to work for, why them? “My role, when I was working with those companies, was not to dictate price pricing or business model. It was more to say: Here’s how regulators would view this. Here’s why you should engage with them. Let me help you engage with them and figure out these issues and how you can also serve customers. Less pricing and business model, but, as an adviser who’s not in the day-to-day, helping to sort of guide a culture and mentality,” she says. Did she disagree with those arguing that these companies created debt traps for consumers? “I think it’s hard to paint with a broad brush,” she says. “I think we should always always be careful with any new products and services, that they are affordable and non-predatory, not creating debt traps, and that they’re solving a real problem for consumers. And I think some do that and some don’t.” Last summer, after Andrew Cuomo resigned as governor, many of his appointees went with him, including then-superintendent of DFS, Linda Lacewell. Soon Harris’s old boss, Cohen, had recommended her to Kathryn Wylde, the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York, a business-advocacy group that has advised DFS. “The folks at Sullivan & Cromwell thought that Adrienne would be a terrific candidate to field for that job given her eight years of experience in the Obama administration and the fact that she was somebody who understood industry,” Wylde says. “On the theory that a regulator should know something about the industries they’re regulating — which may be a novel concept but struck me as a valid one — I thought she sounded like a terrific candidate.” Harris sailed through her confirmation, with 63 senators voting for her and nine against. “When the regulated are complaining that the regulator is being too aggressive, that generally means the regulator is doing their job.” said Michael Gianaris, the state senator from Queens who voted against Harris’s nomination and, in 2019, tanked Amazon’s proposed HQ2 in New York. “Cuomo was a prick, and the people he appointed tended to share his bare-knuckles approach to the world. In some cases, that’s actually not a bad thing.” While the crypto industry doesn’t appear to be getting the reprieve it had been hoping for, other industries will surely lobby Harris to make similar gestures toward the business community. For instance, Wylde says that insurance companies are hoping that Harris will lower the reserves they are required to have on hold, which they claim are higher than what’s required by other states. “There are some long-standing issues that the industry has that they feel that they’ve got a fresh start on with Adrienne’s leadership,” she says. Still, crypto is going to play a major part in how Harris’s tenure is defined. “It’s clear that New York is doing well now and the companies that came and started here five to ten years ago are doing well,” says Matt Homer, a former deputy superintendent at DFS and the current executive-in-residence at the venture-capital fund NYCA Partners. “It’s not totally clear what the future will look like five to ten years from now.” New York is the home base for major exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini, and it’s also home to shady NFT front-running scandals and alleged rapping billionaire money launderers. That such a volatile industry could implode and damage New York’s economy is apparent. “I understand that other states may have gone the opposite way of the BitLicense, but there are things we can do here in New York that will hopefully inform the federal regulators as they continue to think about this space,” Harris said. “It’s a new world with crypto, with DeFi, with NFTs.” SIGN UP FOR THE INTELLIGENCER NEWSLETTER Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world. Email SIGN UP TAGS: THE MONEY GAME CRYPTOCURRENCY LEAVE A COMMENT 12/12/2022 CRIME Sam Bankman-Fried Has Been Arrested in the Bahamas By Kevin T. Dugan The disgraced FTX founder is facing charges from both the Justice Department and the S.E.C. 12/12/2022 POLITICS Twitter’s Former Safety Head Forced From Home After Being Smeared by Elon Musk By Chas Danner Former Twitter executive Yoel Roth and his family have reportedly faced a torrent of harassment and threats after Elon Musk’s false claims. 12/12/2022 WHAT WE KNOW How Big Is the U.S. Fusion Breakthrough? By Chas Danner The Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has reportedly achieved a historic milestone in nuclear fusion. MOST POPULAR The ‘Twitter Files’ Is What It Claims to Expose By ERIC LEVITZ Twitter’s Former Safety Head Forced From Home After Being Smeared by Elon Musk By CHAS DANNER How Big Is the U.S. Fusion Breakthrough? By CHAS DANNER Red-Pilled Elon Musk Still Loves the Chinese Communist Party By JONATHAN CHAIT Elon Musk Gets Loudly Booed at Chappelle Comedy Show By BENJAMIN HART 12/12/2022 EARLY AND OFTEN Here Come the Trump 2024 Alternatives By Ed Kilgore A crop of presidential hopefuls represent Republican fantasies of something better for them than a Trump-Biden rematch. 12/12/2022 POLITICS Scott Stringer Files Defamation Suit Against Harassment Accuser By Nia Prater The former comptroller is suing lobbyist Jean Kim, alleging that her accusations against him were defamatory. 12/12/2022 LOS ANGELES L.A. Councilman Calls Guy He Fought Last Week ‘Hostile Individual’ By Matt Stieb Kevin de León, who was caught making racist remarks on a recording earlier this year, did not apologize after a scuffle with a protester on Friday. 12/12/2022 THE MONEY GAME Now That FTX Is Toast, Is Binance Too Big To Fail? By Kevin T. 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The Silk Road Investigation: A 'Pattern of Bad Behavior and Double Agents' ? Bitcoin News
by Gunnar Larson 21 Nov '24

21 Nov '24

Whete is Kathryn Haun when you need her on NYCCoin? ..... https://news.bitcoin.com/the-silk-road-investigation-a-pattern-of-bad-behav… by Jamie Redman Oct 22, 2019 The Silk Road Investigation: A 'Pattern of Bad Behavior and Double Agents' The Silk Road Investigation: A 'Pattern of Bad Behavior and Double Agents' Kathryn Haun, a general partner at U.S. venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, has revealed in recent interviews how she helped take down the Silk Road when she was working for the Attorney General’s office. According to her accounts, the U.S. government agency also asked her to help “start shutting down technology before it’s built.” Haun’s story also highlights how the U.S. government’s evidence against the Silk Road transpired because of double agents. Also read: FBI Agent Admits to Stealing Silk Road Bitcoins Seized by U.S. Marshals Kathryn Haun Was Asked to Disrupt Bitcoin in 2012 During the last few years, governments worldwide have been cracking down on digital assets like on and off-ramps that are tied to fiat. Regulations are far stricter than they were in the early days, when governments first heard about cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Andreessen Horowitz general partner Kathryn Haun has a lot of experience working with government agencies when it comes to the cryptocurrency economy. She witnessed the takedown of the Silk Road darknet marketplace and before she started she was even asked to help dismantle the Bitcoin network. During an interview with CNBC, Haun revealed how a colleague mentioned the up and coming technology to her in 2012. “‘We have this perfect assignment for you – there’s this thing called Bitcoin and we need to investigate it,'” Haun told the news outlet on October 6. “That was the first time I’d ever heard of bitcoin,” she added. The Silk Road Investigation: A 'Pattern of Bad Behavior and Double Agents' Former Silk Road investigator Kathryn Haun. Attempts to shut down Bitcoin by agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice were fruitless ventures, Haun detailed. “It would have been akin to saying ‘let’s go prosecute cash,'” the former prosecutor said. “What we heard with Libra were the same criticisms [about Bitcoin],” Haun remarked. While discussing the similarities between her early days with Bitcoin in contrast to Libra, she continued: They got more attention because of the high-profile nature of the project and the fact that Facebook was involved. I think it would be a really dangerous thing, and frankly a dangerous precedent to start shutting down technology before it’s built. Uncovering the Silk Road and Parallel Investigations During another recently published interview with Haun, the Andreesen Horowitz partner spoke with Hayman Capital founder Kyle Bass about her role during the prosecution of the Silk Road marketplace. “The Silk Road was making millions of dollars a month and they were generating a lot of revenue,” Haun stressed. She doesn’t remember exactly how the Silk Road case got opened in New York, but she recalls Senator Chuck Schumer read a Wired article that prompted him to wonder why the marketplace was allowed to exist. “So the Southern District of New York, which is another Attorney General’s office – I was in the U.S. Attorney General’s office in San Francisco – SDNY opened the case and was trying to figure out who was behind the Silk Road. At this same time, a D.C. office was also trying to figure out who was running the Silk Road — And there were parallel investigations going.” The Silk Road Investigation: A 'Pattern of Bad Behavior and Double Agents' Haun discusses the Silk Road investigation with Hayman Capital founder Kyle Bass. Haun explained that the government had task forces comprised of many alphabet soup agencies: “We’re talking the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, DEA, ATF, and the U.S. Marshals,” she underlined. “One task force, the one out of Washington D.C., they had an undercover agent. That undercover agent was able to befriend the person running the Silk Road. All the government knew at the time was that the person running the Silk Road went by the nickname ‘DPR’ for ‘Dread Pirate Roberts’ from the movie ‘The Princess Bride.’ So they didn’t know who DPR was, but the undercover agent actually set up an attempt to buy the Silk Road.” The Foundation of Evidence from the Silk Road Case Stemmed from Double Agents According to the former prosecutor, the undercover agent struck many online conversations with DPR and proceeded for the next two years to engage and message with the moniker. “A lot of things went wrong on both sides — From the Silk Road side, 2013 was a really bad year for the Silk Road because what you had was a person who had an online persona called ‘Death from Above,’” Haun said. “Death from Above starting extorting DPR and saying ‘if you don’t pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars in bitcoin I’m going to reveal your identity to law enforcement.’ Meanwhile, there was another online persona who went by the moniker ‘French Maid.’ French Maid was selling DPR information about the government’s investigation. French Maid told DPR the Feds are closing in and the end is near and you are about to be had.” Haun added: The government didn’t know any of this then and it all came out after the fact. In the midst of this, something else really bad happened in 2013 — About 21,000 bitcoins, which is today in excess of roughly $150 million dollars, went missing overnight from the Silk Road. From Silk Road vendor accounts and from what you might consider the petty cash account — Although there’s nothing petty about 21,000 bitcoins. The Silk Road Investigation: A 'Pattern of Bad Behavior and Double Agents' Haun’s story begs the question: How much evidence would the government have without the use of double agents and rogue officers manipulating the investigation? During the remainder of the interview, Haun discussed Curtis Green’s role with the Silk Road and said Green showed the Feds “how the Silk Road worked, how to log into it, how to reset vendor PINs and passwords, and of course [Green] had that access because he was the key administrator.” Haun also said Green even gave his laptop to the Feds to keep as evidence. The discussion with Kyle Bass shows how government agents claim to have dismantled the Silk Road from the words of a former Federal prosecutor. However, Haun wasn’t involved with the DPR takedown first hand, but she was very much involved with investigating rogue agents. At first, when she heard about the first rogue agent she took it with “a grain of salt” and actually said it was a shame the tipster was smearing a Federal agent’s good name. But the tipster was insistent and she decided to look into it. “We saw that this agent who we got the tip for was liquidating hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions a month, in cryptocurrency. So I thought it’s probably another undercover operation and there’s probably a legitimate explanation,” Haun explained. The Silk Road Investigation: A 'Pattern of Bad Behavior and Double Agents' >From left to right — Carl Mark Force, Shaun Bridges, and Curtis Green all played a ‘double agent’ role in the Silk Road investigation. Curtis Green was a Silk Road moderator who was told by the U.S. government to fake his own death. Haun concluded that the rogue agent was caught telling exchanges to destroy transaction histories. Because undercover agents who are running undercover operations shouldn’t be asking for evidence to be destroyed, it raised a red flag Haun said. Her team found a “pattern of really bad behavior to put it mildly” and in the end, it turned out the rogue agent was both online personas: French Maid and Death from Above. Essentially, the interview with Haun shows that Curtis Green, Shaun Bridges, and Carl Mark Force were acting as double agents during the entire investigation. The discussion with Haun further highlights how the Silk Road case was quite messy and many constitutional laws were broken by rogue agents in order to disrupt the site. Still, the U.S. government, with no thought toward constitutional law and a complete disregard for true justice, based all their Silk Road evidence on the shameful ethics of Curtis Green and two rogue cops — Carl Mark Force and Shaun Bridges. It goes to show that the many unanswered questions surrounding the case, like how government agents found the Silk Road’s IP address, which wasn’t due to a faulty ‘captcha’ screen as claimed, were likely due to perfidious agents gone rogue.

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