June 2024 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Crypto Tries to Recreate the Koch Money Machine to Pack Congress with Shills
by Gunnar Larson 16 Jun '24

16 Jun '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/06/crypto-tries-to-recreate-the-koch-mo… Editor’s Note: For watchdog Better Markets’ detailed analysis of crypto’s “track record of lawlessness, deception, fraud, and investor losses,” see here. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 13, 2024 ~ As meticulously chronicled by Jane Mayer and numerous others, the billionaire owners of fossil fuels giant Koch Industries — Charles Koch and his late brother, David Koch – spent decades building the tentacles of what became known as the Kochtopus. It was, and remains, a sprawling network of Super Pacs, nonprofits, dark money groups, activist groups and think tanks deployed to push an anti-regulatory agenda in Congress – particularly when it comes to fossil fuels and climate change. Koch’s latest addition is an Orwellian voter-mining database and its dangerous appendages. Crypto billionaires appear to have studied the Koch playbook carefully and are now rapidly rolling out a strikingly similar network. As we reported on Tuesday, a handful of crypto billionaires and their related crypto businesses had plowed $92.87 million (as of April 30) into a Super Pac, ironically called “Fairshake,” to defeat candidates for Congress who refuse to be toadies for the crypto agenda. We obtained the $92.87 million receipt figure for Fairshake directly from records at the Federal Election Commission, where there is a lag in updating new donations to the public FEC website. According to Bloomberg News, subsequent to April 30, three prior big-money donors to Fairshake, crypto exchange Coinbase, venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz, and blockchain services company, Ripple, each donated $25 million to Fairshake. That additional $75 million would bring Fairshake’s current total to at least $167.87 million — making it one of the largest Super Pacs in the U.S. The vast majority of Fairshake’s money comes either directly from the crypto exchange, Coinbase, or from its billionaire investors. One of those is Brian Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of Coinbase. Armstrong has been brazenly outspoken for the head of a publicly-traded company about threatening members of Congress to either get on board the crypto bandwagon or risk losing their seats in the November election. On the Coinbase blog on June 3, Armstrong wrote this: “Crypto voters won’t be taken seriously until we send a clear message to political candidates that it is bad politics to be anti-crypto. Therefore, the simple conclusion is that we need to support pro-crypto candidates on both sides of the aisle, and unceremoniously vote anti-crypto candidates out of office.” Fairshake did just that in the spring primary in California. It spent over $10 million in attack ads against Congresswoman Katie Porter’s bid for a U.S. Senate seat, falsely claiming that she took campaign money from Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Banks. Porter was soundly defeated. Because her House term is up in January, Porter’s strong public-interest voice will be eliminated completely from Congress. Like Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, crypto has also created a “grassroots movement” called StandwithCrypto.org. On its website, it’s sending a warning to the members of Congress that it plans to target. Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio who is running for reelection this year, is given an “F” rating, with the words “Strongly against crypto” next to his photo on the website. The crypto tentacles also include a dark money nonprofit called Cedar Innovation Foundation. Its website shows that it is already running ads ordering Senator Sherrod Brown (who chairs the Senate Banking Committee) to get Securities and Exchange Commission Chair, Gary Gensler, to back off. The SEC has sued Coinbase for the unregistered sale of securities. The SEC scored a major win in court in March with the judge ruling that the case can move on to trial. Cedar Innovation Foundation is so new and so dark that it could spend tens of millions of dollars this year without providing a hint of its donors, its officers, or even its address. One thing we do know, thanks to OpenSecrets.org, is that it has hired a highly experienced lobbying firm in Washington, D.C. – Mindset Advocacy LLC – which is also a lobbyist for – wait for it – units of Koch Industries. Coincidentally – or perhaps not – crypto has a connection to fossil fuels. According to a 2022 report from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, crypto is driving energy consumption in the wrong direction if we are to stop the dangerous heating of the planet. The report revealed this: “From 2018 to 2022, annualized electricity usage from global crypto-assets grew rapidly, with estimates of electricity usage doubling to quadrupling. As of August 2022, published estimates of the total global electricity usage for crypto-assets are between 120 and 240 billion kilowatt-hours per year, a range that exceeds the total annual electricity usage of many individual countries, such as Argentina or Australia. This is equivalent to 0.4% to 0.9% of annual global electricity usage, and is comparable to the annual electricity usage of all conventional data centers in the world.” In a June 2021 Senate hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren revealed this about crypto: “Cryptocurrencies have turned out to be a fourth-rate alternative to real currency. First, cryptocurrencies are a lousy way to buy and sell things. Unlike the dollar, their value fluctuates wildly depending on the whims of speculative day traders. You know, in just the last two months, the value of Dogecoin increased by more than ten-fold and then declined by nearly 60 percent. Now that may work for speculators and fly-by-night investors, but not for regular people who are looking for a stable source of value to get paid in and to use for day-to-day spending. “Second, crypto is a lousy investment. Unlike, say, the stock market, the crypto world currently has no consumer protection — none. As a result, honest investors and people trying to put aside some savings are at the mercy of fraudsters. Pump and dump schemes are outlawed in the case of ordinary stock, but they have become routine in crypto trading. One study found that the level of price manipulation in cryptocurrency is — and I quote — ‘unprecedented in modern markets’… “Finally, there are the environmental costs of crypto. Many cryptocurrencies are created through ‘proof-of-work’ mining. It involves using computers to solve useless mathematical puzzles in exchange for newly minted cryptocurrency tokens. Such mining has devastating consequences for the climate. Some crypto mining is set up near coal plants, spewing out filth in return for a chance to harvest a few crypto coins. Total energy consumption is staggering, driving up demand for energy. If, for example, Bitcoin — just one of the cryptocurrencies — were a country, it would already be the 33rd largest energy user in the world — using more energy yearly than all of the Netherlands. “And all those promised benefits – the currency that would be available at no cost to millions of unbanked families and that would provide a haven from the tricks and traps of big banks – well, those benefits haven’t materialized.” Warren’s assessment of crypto’s lack of productive purpose was backed up in a letter sent on June 1, 2022 by 1600 of the smartest minds in technology to key members of congress and congressional committees. The authors wrote: “We strongly disagree with the narrative — peddled by those with a financial stake in the crypto-asset industry— that these technologies represent a positive financial innovation and are in any way suited to solving the financial problems facing ordinary Americans….” Raising more alarm bells is the fact that the Koch-related Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action) is also targeting Senator Sherrod Brown by running a $1 million ad campaign supporting his opponent, Bernie Moreno. If ever there was a screaming call for campaign finance reform, it is now.

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Crypto Just Got Exponentially More Dangerous: Meet Fairshake
by Gunnar Larson 16 Jun '24

16 Jun '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/06/crypto-just-got-exponentially-more-d… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 11, 2024 ~ The first thing you need to know about crypto is that some of the smartest minds in investment and technology have studied crypto carefully and determined it’s a total sham. In July 2019, NYU Professor and economist Nouriel Roubini summed up his findings like this: “Crypto currencies are not even currencies. They’re a joke…The price of Bitcoin has fallen in a week by how much – 30 percent. It goes up 20 percent one day, collapses the next. It is not a means of payment, nobody, not even this blockchain conference, accepts Bitcoin for paying for conference fees cause you can do only five transactions per second with Bitcoin. With the Visa system you can do 25,000 transactions per second…Crypto’s nonsense. It’s a failure. Nobody’s using it for any transactions. It’s trading one sh*tcoin for another sh*tcoin. That’s the entire trading or currency in the space where’s there’s price manipulation, spoofing, wash trading, pump and dumping, frontrunning. It’s just a big criminal scam and nothing else.” On June 1, 2022, more than 1,600 computer scientists, software engineers and technologists from around the world sent a letter to key members of the U.S. Congress and to the Chairs of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees, disputing that crypto was a worthwhile financial innovation. Among the signatories to the letter were 45 experts who worked at Google; 19 from Microsoft; 11 from Apple; and Ph.Ds from the most prestigious universities in the world, including Oxford and MIT. These experts told Congress the following: “We strongly disagree with the narrative — peddled by those with a financial stake in the crypto-asset industry— that these technologies represent a positive financial innovation and are in any way suited to solving the financial problems facing ordinary Americans… “As software engineers and technologists with deep expertise in our fields, we dispute the claims made in recent years about the novelty and potential of blockchain technology. Blockchain technology cannot, and will not, have transaction reversal or data privacy mechanisms because they are antithetical to its base design. Financial technologies that serve the public must always have mechanisms for fraud mitigation and allow a human-in-the-loop to reverse transactions; blockchain permits neither.” In February of last year, the Wall Street Journal gave the iconic investor, Charlie Munger, space for a 393-word OpEd on crypto. Munger, who died in November of last year at age 99, used the space to urge the U.S. to ban crypto, as China and numerous other countries have already done. Munger wrote this: “…A cryptocurrency is not a currency, not a commodity, and not a security. Instead, it’s a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house, entered into in a country where gambling contracts are traditionally regulated only by states that compete in laxity. Obviously, the U.S. should now enact a new federal law that prevents this from happening.” But even after the FTX crypto exchange and Sam Bankman-Fried and his colleagues perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history, billionaire investors in crypto companies are still getting their way with far too many members of the U.S. Congress in exchange for fat political contributions. In February and March, the crypto billionaires became exponentially more dangerous. They decided they were going to knock Congresswoman Katie Porter out of the running for a U.S. Senate seat. What was Porter’s transgression against crypto? In January 2022, Porter had joined with Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats in Congress in investigating the inherent dangers between crypto, energy usage and dangerous heating of the planet. A press statement summarized their concerns as follows: “Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and the United States’ share of Bitcoin mining increased from 4% in August 2019 to 35% in July 2021. This share of mining is growing even more rapidly after China’s crackdown on cryptomining, which left 500,000 mining operations looking for new locations. This could push North America to represent over 40% of the total global computing power dedicated to mining Bitcoin. As more cryptomining operations proliferate in the United States, the extraordinary energy use raises alarms about massive carbon emissions and the impacts of this energy consumption on consumer energy prices. A recent study estimated that cryptomining in upstate New York raised annual electric bills by about $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for consumers.” The famously outspoken Porter (armed with her whiteboard and Harvard Law degree) could have posed a bigger problem in the Senate than she already does for crypto in the House. So a small group of crypto billionaires decided to simply take Porter out of contention for a Senate seat by spending an acknowledged $10,041,118.54 on grossly misleading attack ads against Porter, falsely claiming she was taking money from Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Banks. Because Porter’s House term is up in January, she will no longer be a problem for crypto in either the Senate or House come next year. The funding for the attack ads came from a Super Pac with the Orwellian, reverse-speak name of “Fairshake” – exactly what it did not want to give to Porter. As of April 30, Fairshake has taken in $92.87 million in political contributions with the vast bulk of that coming from a handful of tightly-linked crypto interests related to the crypto exchange — Coinbase — according to records at the Federal Election Commission. Coinbase and its payments arm, Coinbase Commerce, contributed over $51.5 million — 55 percent of the total of all receipts at Fairshake thus far. A major investor in Coinbase, Marc Andreessen, of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a/k/a AH Capital Management), chipped in $9.5 million. His partner in AH Capital Management, Ben Horowitz, added another $9.5 million. Not wanting to look like pikers – given the huge sum contributed from publicly-traded Coinbase – AH Capital Management itself chipped in $19 million. The Chairman and CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, handed Fairshake a cool $1 million. The Lead Independent Director on the Board of Coinbase, Fred Wilson, gave Fairshake $1,047,540. Coinbase-related contributions to Fairshake represent 98.5 percent of its total receipts thus far. Unfortunately, knocking out Porter does not appear to be game-over for Fairshake. Two other Senators who are crypto skeptics are running for re-election: Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chair of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, and Jon Tester (D-MT). Fairshake has thus far spent just $40.6 million of its $92.87 million haul.

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Wall Street’s Go-To Law Firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, Got in Bed with Crypto; Now Its Reputation Is Being Hammered
by Gunnar Larson 16 Jun '24

16 Jun '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/03/wall-streets-go-to-law-firm-sullivan… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 25, 2024 ~ Ryne Miller, Former Sullivan & Cromwell Partner; Now General Counsel of FTX.US Ryne Miller, Former Sullivan & Cromwell Partner Who Became General Counsel of FTX.US Since January, the reputation of Wall Street’s go-to law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, has been repeatedly hammered. It all stems from the law firm’s decision some years ago to involve itself in legal representations of crypto firms and/or their principals – an industry that 1,600 of the brightest scientific minds in technology have called a sham. On January 19, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals sharply rebuked the law firm’s position that it didn’t need an independent watchdog appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to oversee the way it was handling the collapsed crypto house of frauds (known as FTX) in bankruptcy proceedings – despite it having significant conflicts of interests in the matter, such as previously providing legal representation to the mastermind of the fraud, Sam Bankman-Fried. On February 16, a federal lawsuit was filed against the law firm alleging civil conspiracy, aiding and abetting fraud, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, and violations of civil federal racketeering law in regard to its work for FTX, which had looted customer funds to the tune of billions of dollars. This month Sullivan & Cromwell is the subject of a scathing academic review related to its work for FTX by two law professors, Jonathan Lipson of Temple University-Beasley School of Law and David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. The law professors name names – including the alleged activities of key law partners at Sullivan & Cromwell related to FTX. Last year, Wall Street On Parade wrote 20 articles focusing on the glaring conflicts of Sullivan & Cromwell in the FTX matter. Common sense indicated it had rendered itself unfit for the role of lead counsel in the FTX bankruptcy proceeding. (See a relevant sample in Related Articles below.) We also provided much needed sunshine on the peculiar willingness of the presiding Judge, John Dorsey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, to sign off on a litany of orders that S&C requested as it enriched itself to the tune of $180 million in legal fees from the FTX bankruptcy proceedings in his court. To even casual observers, Sullivan & Cromwell’s conflicts in the FTX case were stunning. One of Sullivan & Cromwell’s law partners, Ryne Miller, had moved to FTX.US and became its General Counsel. Another former Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer, Tim Wilson, became General Counsel for FTX Ventures, the venture capital arm of FTX. Sullivan & Cromwell had not only previously represented Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted in November 2023 on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, but it had also previously represented the Head of Engineering at FTX, Nishad Singh, who pled guilty to fraud charges. According to Sullivan & Cromwell’s own bankruptcy court declaration, it had been involved in more than 20 legal engagements for FTX before it filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022. According to the declaration, the law firm’s legal work began 15 months prior to the collapse of FTX. Sullivan & Cromwell’s conflicts with FTX and its demand to be appointed lead counsel in the bankruptcy case were so suspicious that in January of last year four sitting U.S. Senators (Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)) sent a letter to Judge Dorsey. Senator Hickenlooper Tweeted a link to the letter with the comment: “Get this: FTX’s legal advisors *pre-collapse* want to be appointed to oversee investigations INTO the collapse.” The Senators’ letter drilled down as follows: “To name just one challenge: will the firm’s lawyers be able to effectively investigate their current and former partners who were central in FTX’s conduct? Additionally, given their longstanding legal work for FTX, they may well bear a measure of responsibility for the damage wrecked on the company’s victims. Put bluntly, the firm is simply not in a position to uncover the information needed to ensure confidence in any investigation or findings.” That assessment was perhaps too gentle according to the federal lawsuit filed in February against Sullivan & Cromwell by the Moskowitz Law Firm on behalf of 16 customers of the FTX crypto platform. Among the allegations in the lawsuit are the following: “…from November 2022 to mid-January 2024, S&C’s income from matters just related to FTX has surged, exceeding $180 million — or 10% of the total revenue the 900-lawyer firm publicly stated it collected in all of 2022 — with paralegals billing $595/hr. and partners billing up to $2,165/hr.” “S&C attorneys served as the primary legal services providers for the RICO enterprise, assisting in the structuring of the enterprise operations.” “When the FTX fraud was revealed in November 2022, Mr. Miller and S&C moved to consolidate power over the FTX Group without delay, quickly ousting SBF [Sam Bankman-Fried] and his lieutenants and appointing in their stead hand-picked successors to navigate FTX through the bankruptcy process. S&C’s post-collapse maneuvering seems particularly calculated, given that S&C was well positioned to see the collapse coming, via knowledge gleaned from prior engagements.” “Mr. Miller and S&C moved to divert the $250 million FTX Guaranty Fund from LedgerX, one of the few entities S&C specifically chose not to include among the over 100 FTX entities it forced into bankruptcy, in order to secure receipt of a multi-million-dollar retainer to S&C before the FTX Group filed for bankruptcy, presumably to improve the Firm’s revenues throughout the extensive FTX bankruptcy process. With S&C’s assistance, SBF [Sam Bankman-Fried] and FTX caused billions in losses to Plaintiffs through at least two separate schemes, both of which contributed to the downfall of the FTX Group.” Notwithstanding the myriad conflicts, Judge Dorsey was all-in on Sullivan & Cromwell becoming lead counsel in the FTX bankruptcy. When Sullivan & Cromwell argued against allowing the U.S. Department of Justice’s U.S. Trustee to appoint an independent examiner – a legally mandated position for bankruptcy cases exceeding $5 million — Judge Dorsey sided with the law firm. Dorsey’s decision was sharply rebuked by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on January 19. The court wrote: “Under the Bankruptcy Court’s interpretation, the appointment of an examiner under either subsection of Section 1104(c) would be subject to a court’s discretion and a judge would have the final say as to whether an investigation was warranted. But this interpretation runs counter to the statute’s plain language and established canons of construction.” The Appeals Court also insightfully noted the following: “First, an examiner must be ‘disinterested’… This requirement of disinterest is particularly salient here, where issues of potential conflicts of interest arising from debtor’s counsel serving as pre-petition advisors to FTX have been raised repeatedly….” The U.S. Trustee has tapped Robert Cleary of law firm Patterson Belknap as its independent examiner to conduct the FTX investigation. Cleary is a former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and the Southern District of Illinois and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. One of the areas that Cleary will examine is if Sullivan & Cromwell’s conflicts were adequately addressed prior to its appointment as lead counsel and if it failed to disclose any material conflicts. Sullivan & Cromwell ranks among the oldest law firms in America. It was founded 145 years ago by Algernon Sydney Sullivan and William Nelson Cromwell in the financial district of lower Manhattan. During the Wall Street crisis of the 1930s, Sullivan & Cromwell built a reputation for defending Wall Street firms against shareholder lawsuits and antitrust actions. Sullivan & Cromwell also played a pivotal role in the 2008 financial crisis, the worst since the Great Depression. As Wall Street On Parade previously detailed, the firm’s Senior Chair, Rodge Cohen, paved the way for the Fed’s unprecedented $29 trillion bailout of Wall Street banks after their corrupt activities collapsed the U.S. economy in 2008. Why Sullivan & Cromwell decided to leap with both feet into the dodgy world of crypto will, hopefully, inspire another academic paper very soon. Related Articles: No One Trusts the FTX Bankruptcy Case: News Outlets Intervene; Justice Department Trustee Demands Independent Examiner; SEC Orders Disclosures A Sam Bankman-Fried Company Loaned or Invested More than $1 Billion in Clients of its Law Firm, Sullivan & Cromwell Bombshell Emails Raise Questions about What Sullivan & Cromwell Knew about Fraud at Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Firms

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Directorates Who Discredit Truthful Witnesses (W/80 Highlights)
by Gunnar Larson 15 Jun '24

15 Jun '24

Happy Memorial Day, John McCain! Gunnar ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> Date: Sun, May 19, 2024, 4:16 PM Subject: Directorates Who Discredit Truthful Witnesses (W/80 Highlights) To: <cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org> “And the persons who ultimately are harmed by all of this, of course, is the average consumer, the average citizen, who has no knowledge, unless it paid attention to this hearing, of the extent of the manipulations that have been carried out by the largest financial institutions in America and, indeed, probably the world.” - Senator John McCain *Highlights and working notes on the ethical limits of discrediting the truthful witness, observing modern directorates and ethics rules that fail to prevent truth distortion by unethical means (Source research by Marquette Law Review).* History provides the epic example of Enron and a cunning Board of Directors of misleaders, a team of flimflam artists who used sly rhetorical skills to bamboozle the public, turning night into day. In this conception, directorates tell stories only in order to seduce and beguile regulators who fall prey to the advocate’s star-crossed tricks. Why do company Directors employ unethical, false story techniques to advance a false defense when ethical means are available? The exponential effects of this troublesome behavior requires that the firm’s every word, action and attitude be consistent with the conclusion that is dishonest. Board directors are the ultimate self policing body of an organization, responsible for setting the tone for ethical rules and standards. Not only are modern ethical rules unable to prevent directorates who use of false-story techniques, but little can be done in the way of reforming the rules themselves so that they can more effectively regulate the unethical means by which honesty is systematically discredited and made to look untruthful. - As witnessed in New York State recently, top leaders sometimes ignore ethical rules by rationalizing away conduct known to be unethical standards of professional behavior. - More abstract-oriented discussions concerning whether society’s best interests are advanced with attempts to distort outcomes by discrediting the truth has even impacted virtual currency innovation out of New York. These points simply seem invented as an outrageous scenario presented to the public by way of question, yet they are indeed true. - There is a pattern of routinely using an arsenal of tricks to subvert the truth. The culprit may argue that the version of events is untruthful, because of a motive to fabricate the truth. In actuality, incompetence is the only true motive to fabricate directorate supported dishonesty. Now more than ever, honest and ethical leaders know that each time a directorate uses talents and skills to pollute the marketplace with lies (either explicit or implicit) to manipulate profits is an act that initially diminishes the chances of a prosperous society. Such practice of engaging in conduct that involves dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation is impermissible and should not be tolerated. Without swift action, the public may lose confidence in both system wide innovation and maximizing the whole human potential of our species. - Alternatively, employing truthful answers to string together a series of inferences that collectively weaken the case of interlocking directorates. - Vigorously defending potentially problematic interlocking directorates can be systematically re-purposed with the goal of protecting the innocent. We share 80 highlights to Todd A. Berger’s (published by Marquette Law Review) “The Ethical Limits of Discrediting the Truthful Witness: How Modern Ethics Rules Fail to Prevent Truthful Witnesses from Being Discredited Through Unethical Means.” ---- Directorates Who Discredit Truthful Witnesses (W/80 Highlights): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XzfRqxxDD5OzQgkH1Ok2wdO25JZiqVev/view?usp=… -- *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 +1-917-580-8053 New York, New York 10001

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Playing Chess Makes Me A Better Lawyer
by Gunnar Larson 15 Jun '24

15 Jun '24

Playing Chess Makes Me A Better Lawyer <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1830842?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…> There are many ways that chess skills translate directly into lawyer skills, but for me, the bigger career lessons go beyond the direct parallels — playing chess has shown me the value of seeing gradual improvement in and focusing deep concentration on a nonwork endeavor, says attorney Steven Fink. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1830842?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1830842?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…>

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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 15 Jun '24

15 Jun '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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Judge Likely to Reject $30 Billion Visa, Mastercard Fee Deal
by Gunnar Larson 15 Jun '24

15 Jun '24

Never understood why the Biden administration picked the former head of Mastercard to run the World Bank: https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/people/a/ajay-banga What a joke! ---- Judge Likely to Reject $30 Billion Visa, Mastercard Fee Deal https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-13/judge-likely-to-kill-30-… A $30 billion settlement between Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and retailers to cap credit-card swipe fees is likely to be rejected by a federal judge in Brooklyn, a setback in the two decade-long litigation.

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United States: Russian State-Sponsored TV Network's Attempt To Dismiss Copyright Lawsuit On Fair Use Grounds Denied
by Gunnar Larson 15 Jun '24

15 Jun '24

*Moscow Stock Exchange* *Logo:* https://tinyurl.com/3v2fd3y2 *Meta's (Facebook) logo,seemingly is a shocker*: https://tinyurl.com/2p8csm8u What is extremely interesting, the copyright case below was filed on March 8, 2021: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2021cv02007/555642 Facebook announced their new Meta brand and logo on October 28, 2021: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/founders-letter/ xNY.io debating the Moscow Stock Exchange Logo and the Meta logo, "ask[s] not whether the second work would *damage* the market for the first (by, for example, devaluing it through parody or criticism), but whether it *usurps* the market for the first by offering a competing substitute." On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 12:05 PM Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> wrote: > In other news, related to Meta's (FB) logo being very similar to the > Moscow Stock Exchange logo, something similar has been discussed in New > York. I found this quote very interesting: > > - "Lastly, regarding the fourth factor, concerning the effect of the > use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work, the Court > noted that this factor "ask[s] not whether the second work would > *damage* the market for the first (by, for example, devaluing it > through parody or criticism), but whether it *usurps* the market for > the first by offering a competing substitute." > > ---------- > > https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/copyright/1174834/russian-state-sponsor… > > TV-Novosti, a non-profit operating the Russian state-controlled > RT(formerly Russia Today) television networks and 38 associated RT YouTube > channels, has been sued for copyright infringement by Business Casual, an > American media company that creates documentary content, based on its use > of translated clips of Business Casual's documentaries in its own videos > posted to YouTube. > > Business Casual creates short original historical documentaries which it > posts to its YouTube channel. Its documentaries frequently feature > photographs of historical figures, using a process called "parallax" which > "transforms century-old low-resolution photographs into dramatically > restored high-resolution photographs" and "turn[s] two-dimensional images > into three-dimensional models . . . simulating a depth-of-field. This > optical illusion provides Business Casual's videos with an immersive > three-dimensional look and feel." > > The lawsuit relates to two of Business Casual's documentaries—"How > Rockefeller Built His Trillion Dollar Oil Empire" and "J.P. Morgan > Documentary: How One Man Financed America"—clips of which Business Casual > alleges TV-Novosti incorporated into three separate videos on its > "RT-Arabic" YouTube channel, including portions featuring parallax-enhanced > images, altering the brightness and saturation of the copied content and > replacing Business Casual's watermark with TV-Novosti's own in order to > hide from YouTube's algorithms. > > TV-Novosti moved to dismiss the copyright claims, arguing that it's use of > the clips is protected as fair use. However, after considering each of the > four statutory factors, Judge Koeltl of the Southern District of New York > denied TV-Novosti's motion, holding that while three of the four factors > weighed against finding fair use, "[t]he fourth factor, which the Supreme > Court has described as 'the single most important element of fair use,' > cannot be determined without further factual development." > > Specifically, regarding the first factor, concerning the transformation of > the use, Judge Koeltl found that while TV-Novosti's videos take portions of > the plaintiff's videos, re-arrange them, and add new commentary to them, > TV-Novosti had not made any meaningful changes to the visual clips > themselves, and "[m]erely overlaying new audio does not effect a sufficient > transformation . . . to find fair use as a matter of law." The Court > further noted that TV-Novosti had "not changed the purpose of the > parallax-enhanced images," i.e., to provide visual illustration for the > overlain audio commentary, but had instead "simply lifted the copyrighted > depictions . .. for the purpose of illustrating [TV-Novosti's] own video." > In addition, the Court found that the fact that TV-Novosti could have > sought to pay for the clips, but didn't, and tried to hide its use of the > excerpts from YouTube's algorithms, also weighed against a finding a fair > use under the first factor. > > Regarding the second factor, concerning the nature of the copyrighted > work, the Court initially noted that factual material such as that at > issue, "cuts less closely to the core of copyright." Nevertheless, the > Court held that the fact that source material for Business Casual's videos > was in the public domain weighed against finding fair use, because TV > Novosti could have simply used public domain photos of the historical > figures, rather than the modified clips, to create its videos. > > Regarding the third factor, concerning the amount of use in relation to > the copyrighted work as a whole, the Court noted that while only "small > portions of the entire copyrighted works were used"—excerpts of 7 seconds, > 1 minute and 28 seconds, and 8 minutes and 50 seconds in length—the > portions were "not so trivial as to warrant dismissal under the de minimis > doctrine." > > Lastly, regarding the fourth factor, concerning the effect of the use on > the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work, the Court noted > that this factor "ask[s] not whether the second work would *damage* the > market for the first (by, for example, devaluing it through parody or > criticism), but whether it *usurps* the market for the first by offering > a competing substitute." With this framing, the Court thus found that while > one the one hand, TV-Novosti's "videos are alternative ways of learning > about the lives of J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller," on the other hand, > they "have a broader focus and are in a different language, meaning that > they cater to a different audience." These differences, the Court held, > were significant enough to preclude the Court from "determining the effect > of [TV-Novosti's] videos on the market for [Business Casual's] videos at > this time." > > The Court's recognition of the weight of the fourth factor in determining > fair use means that there may still be hope for TV-Novosti—time (and fact > discovery) will tell. For now, the takeaway may very well be that parties > seeking to raise a fair use defense should take care to emphasize any > characteristics of their use that distinguish not just their work, but its > target audience, including the scope of the work and the language (if any) > which communicates it. > > > -- > *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 > New York, New York 10001 > -- *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 New York, New York 10001

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Fwd: Your Freedom of Information Law Request FOIL-2023-096828-022365 (LendingClub.com September 11 Board of Directors Resignation)
by Gunnar Larson 15 Jun '24

15 Jun '24

SENT VIA EMAIL G(a)xny.io June 13, 2024 Mr. Gunnar D Larson xNY.io - Bank.org 406 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001 Re: Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) Tracking No. 2023-096828 Dear Mr. Gunnar D Larson: I write in response to the FOIL request that you submitted to The New York State Department of Financial Services (“Department”), which has been assigned tracking number 2023-096828. The Department requires additional time to respond to your FOIL request because we are still working on your request. The Department intends to provide its determination of your request by July 11, 2024. Thank you. -- 2024-096828: 3/13/24: Please submit any and all records related to the LendingClub.com September 11 Board of Directors resignation below. The date of the resignation is in question. You may understand the sensitive nature of the date of the resignation Gunnar Larson Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:06 PM to Anuj, Investor, Press Hello there: Thank you very much for the reply. Gunnar On Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 11:36 AM Anuj Nayar wrote: Hi Gunnar On September 11, 2021, in connection with her nomination to serve as superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, Adrienne Harris notified us of her resignation, effective September 12, 2021, from the Company’s Board. Details can be found in the 8k filed on 9/15/21 (below) https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK- 0001409970/bbc437e4-2920-4d5d-8e0d-86bca622f0ca.pdf From: Gunnar Larson Date: Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 9:37 AM To: Investor Relations , Press Cc: Gunnar Larson Subject: [EXT] LendingClub: Current Board of Directors CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Madam or Sir: Good day to you. Surveying market research, I was wondering if you can kindly confirm, from LendingClub's July 15, 2021 press release: Is Ms. Adrienne Harris currently a member of LendingClub's board of directors? https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lendingclub-appoints-adrienne-harr… board-of-directors-301335198.html#financial-modal [prnewswire.com] Reviewing your website, Ms. Harris is not referenced: https://www.lendingclub.com/company/leadership Bloomberg and other sources do not reference Ms. Harris as a LendingClub board member: https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/LC:US [bloomberg.com] Sending you the very best regards. Thank you, Gunnar -- Gunnar Larson - xNY.io [xny.io] | Bank.org [bank.org] MSc [unic.ac.cy] - Digital Currency MBA [unic.ac.cy] - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454- 9107 New York, New York 10001 ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: <Carmen.Garrett(a)dfs.ny.gov> Date: Thu, Jun 13, 2024, 10:30 AM Subject: Your Freedom of Information Law Request FOIL-2023-096828-022365 To: <G(a)xny.io> Good morning: Attached, please find correspondence from the New York State Department of Financial Services pertaining to your FOIL request. Thank you. Tracking Number:FOIL-2023-096828-022365

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Fwd: Meta Platforms, Inc. Board of Directors - USPTO, Digital Assets and Moscow Exchange
by Gunnar Larson 15 Jun '24

15 Jun '24

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Chollet, Nicki <NChollet(a)ktslaw.com> Date: Mon, Jun 10, 2024, 2:03 PM Subject: RE: Meta Platforms, Inc. Board of Directors - USPTO, Digital Assets and Moscow Exchange To: Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> Cc: cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org <cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org> Dear Mr. Larson, As we have previously stated, before we can properly evaluate or respond to your claim, you will need to provide additional details regarding the basis for your claim and documentation of your relationship with Moscow Exchange or ownership in the Moscow Exchange mark (for example, trademark registration certificates evidencing your ownership of the alleged marks in question). Until we receive this information, we will not respond further to your correspondence. Meta Platforms reserves all rights. Sincerely, Nicki Chollet NChollet(a)ktslaw.com Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP 1100 Peachtree Street NE | Suite 2800 | Atlanta, GA 30309-4528 *T* 404 815 6010 | *M* 404 906 6948 | *F* 404 541 3387 My Profile <http://www.ktslaw.com/en/People/C/CholletNicholeDavis> | vCard <http://www.ktslaw.com/vcard/NicholeDavisChollet.vcf> *From:* Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> *Sent:* Saturday, May 25, 2024 7:12 AM *To:* Chollet, Nicki <NChollet(a)ktslaw.com> *Cc:* cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org *Subject:* Fwd: Meta Platforms, Inc. Board of Directors - USPTO, Digital Assets and Moscow Exchange **CAUTION: External Email** Ms. Chollet: xNY.io - Bank.org has been made aware your client is familiar with our concerns. Can we schedule a call with your office next week? Kindly, Gunnar Larson ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: *Chollet, Nicki* <NChollet(a)kilpatricktownsend.com> Date: Thu, Sep 1, 2022, 3:20 PM Subject: RE: Meta Platforms, Inc. Board of Directors - USPTO, Digital Assets and Moscow Exchange To: Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> Cc: Meta_Defensive_Disputes <Meta_Defensive_Disputes(a)kilpatricktownsend.com> Dear Mr. Larson, As we have previously stated, before we can properly evaluate or respond to your claim, you will need to provide additional details regarding the basis for your claim and documentation of your relationship with Moscow Exchange or ownership in the Moscow Exchange mark (for example, trademark registration certificates evidencing your ownership of the alleged marks in question). Until we receive this information, we will not respond further to your correspondence. Meta Platforms reserves all rights. Sincerely, *Nichole Davis Chollet Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP* Suite 2800 | 1100 Peachtree Street NE | Atlanta, GA 30309-4528 office 404 815 6010 | cell 404 906 6948 | fax 404 541 3387 nchollet(a)kilpatricktownsend.com | My Profile <http://www.kilpatricktownsend.com/en/People/C/CholletNicholeDavis> | VCard <http://www.kilpatricktownsend.com/vcard/NicholeDavisChollet.vcf> *From:* Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> *Sent:* Wednesday, August 31, 2022 4:53 PM *To:* Chollet, Nicki <NChollet(a)kilpatricktownsend.com> *Cc:* Meta_Defensive_Disputes < Meta_Defensive_Disputes(a)kilpatricktownsend.com>; cypherpunks < cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org>; investor(a)fb.com *Subject:* Re: Meta Platforms, Inc. Board of Directors - USPTO, Digital Assets and Moscow Exchange Ms. Chollett: We have not heard from you. Is there some reason why? Gunnar Gunnar Larson xNY.io - Bank.org On Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:05 PM Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> wrote: Ms. Chollett: Are you free to discuss this tomorrow? Meta seems to be fanning the flames. Thank you, Gunnar Gunnar Larson xNY.io - Bank.org On Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 4:44 PM Gunnar Larson <g(a)xny.io> wrote: Ms. Chollett: Thank you, kindly, for continued correspondence related to Meta Board questions specific to xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC's concern to protecting cross-border digital asset innovation. xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC first became alarmed through Meta's obvious digital asset market problems related to Libra, Diem, Novi and USDP. Through Meta's continued digital identity transitions, xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC has pioneered cross-border digital asset logic(s). Moreover, the Moscow Exchange and Meta introduced market events over March that jeopardize digital asset market purty. Ms, Chollett, xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC will not pay for market effects related to Meta's cross-border disruption of digital asset innovation, related to Meta's obvious mark exactness (by definition) to the Moscow Exchange. *Ms. Chollett, we cannot concern ourselves with Meta's intentions, good or otherwise, given clear problems that exacerbate market risk: * - March 11, 2022 <https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/russia-moves-to-declare-meta-an-ex…>: Russia's leader, who is in charge of the Moscow Exchange cites Meta as an 'extremist organization' ... - March 14, 2022 <https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ff9f1af5-cc8a-473a-822b-8890…>: Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC Benjamin G. Murray published SDNY insights to a Russian State-Sponsored TV Network's Attempt to Dismiss Copyright Lawsuit On Fair Use Grounds Denied. - March 17, 2022 <https://www.sberbank.com/news-and-media/press-releases/article?newsID=cd44d…>: Moscow Exchange is the backend to Russia's largest bank, Sber. The announcement on 03/17/22 confirmed Sber (via the Moscow Exchange technology, at various levels) would issue digital assets. - March 18, 2022 <https://cointelegraph.com/news/meta-files-8-digital-asset-and-web-3-0-trade…>: Meta Platforms Inc. filed USPTO mark applications for a mark EXACTLY DEFINED to that of the Moscow Exchange. - Ms. Chollette, below my signature you will find Meta's filing numbers and descriptions related to a mark defined as Moscow Exchange, with plans to engage the mark in commerce related to digital assets and virtual reality. - March 24, 2022 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f_fq1GaKNaAUGEyztdm-oMtIuEW2yXj4C5aoN0G…>: xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC contacted meta, with a memo introducing our direct plan to protect cross-border digital asset innovation. Ms. Chollette, please note that Russia has labeled Meta as an 'extremist organization' ... So who really knows what the Moscow Exchange will thi xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC is a very reasonable digital asset pioneer, and sitting in Manhattan the jury is in on market contributions from Libra, Diem, Novi and USDP. Ms, Chollette, Meta and the Moscow Exchange matter really suggest only losing marketplace contributions, obviously potentially devastating digital asset marketplace innovation(s). We aim to solve this problem immediately: 1. Ms. Collette, xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC recently shared Citigroup's Metaverse and Money <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1REoa87GCmt2uhDp7ZYswbTRw4ygQgjsL/view?usp=…> whitepaper, with 33 highlights to our grave concern to Meta's potential marketplace delinquency related to Meta's mark exactness to Moscow Exchange. 2. Furthermore, Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Putin are both highlight quotes to Citigroup's Metaverse and Money research. 3. With the date order, footnotes, and highlights xNY.io -Bank.org, PBC kindly petitions Meta's board to understand the opportunity ... The Moscow Exchange is not our problem, and for whatever reason Meta will have no opportunity to make mark exactness our problem. The United State of America's cross-border approach to digital asset innovation will be cultivated, fostered and protected by xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC. We aim not to be adversarial with Meta, but we will stop at no cost to invest in claim rewards if necessary. Perhaps, we can organize a time to discuss potential resolutions in the immediate term. xNY.io - Bank.org, PBC must reserve all rights specific to harm from March 14, 2022 <https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ff9f1af5-cc8a-473a-822b-8890…> and March 18, 2022 <https://cointelegraph.com/news/meta-files-8-digital-asset-and-web-3-0-trade…> market events. Please feel free to call or email anytime. Sending you the very best from New York City, Gunnar Larson -- *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 New York, New York 10001 97320155: Online social networking and dating services, including a specific branch tailored for networking between cryptocurrency investors. 97320153: Design and development of computer hardware and software relating to Web3, including gaming, e-commerce, blockchain transactions, etc. 97320149: Entertainment and electronic publishing services, partly within virtual reality. 97320147: Telecommunication services for electronic assets held on its platform. 97320146: Financial transaction processing services relating to tokens, blockchain assets, cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets. 97320144: Advertising services via virtual or augmented reality networks and the metaverse. 97320140: Wearable peripherals for video games connected to virtual reality. 97320136: Downloadable software in the nature of a mobile application, such as for user authentication, online charitable fundraising and most notably, for hardware or e-wallets. ------------------------------ Confidentiality Notice: This communication constitutes an electronic communication within the meaning of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 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