Why the Democrats are making a big mistake by obsessing over Russia

[tlongII]

Can you find the word "intent" in the laws concerning the handling of classified information?

He cannot.

[rmt]

More importantly from that IBD/TIPP poll:

A majority of the public approves of the Republican plan to cut Medicaid spending while handing greater control of the health care program to states, the latest IBD/TIPP poll finds. It also found overwhelming support for President Trump's call to impose work requirements on able-bodied food-stamp recipients, and strong support for tax cuts.

Medicaid Reforms Wanted

The IBD/TIPP poll found that 55% support "reducing federal funding of Medicaid, a program that provides health care for low-income Americans, by giving states more flexibility to manage the program," while 42% oppose this reform. In addition to strong support from Republicans (70% of whom approve of this idea), more than half (54%) of independents back it, as do 44% of Democrats.

Work For Food Stamps

On food stamps, more than three quarters (76%) support "adding a work requirement for able-bodied food-stamp recipients." That includes a large majority of Democrats (66% of whom back a work requirement) and independents (77% approve). In fact, the idea gets majority support from every demographic breakdown included in the poll results. For example, 71% of those making less than $30,000 a year support food-stamp work requirements.

Tax Cuts Over Spending Hikes

The poll also asked those surveyed whether they'd prefer more government services and higher taxes or fewer services and lower taxes.

It found that 57% would prefer tax cuts more than government services. Out of all the demographic, partisan and ideological categories, only Democrats and liberals said they prefer more government services and higher taxes (65% and 64%, respectively).

Nearly two-thirds of independents (63%) and more than half of moderates (52%), would rather have tax cuts than bigger government.


http://www.investors.com/politics/pu...ibd-tipp-poll/

[RandomGuy]

Keep throwing against the wall. Eventually something will stick.

That is how you deal with mob bosses.

Its wasn't murder that took Capone down, it was taxes.

So much corruption, so little time.

[RandomGuy]

Can you find the word "intent" in the laws concerning the handling of classified information?

Comey lawyer, not TSA.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Comey lawyer, not TSA.

In order to cons ute the crimes denounced by §§ 1(b) and 2 of the Espionage Act -- the obtaining of do ents connected with or relating to the national defense and their delivery to an agent of a foreign country with an intent, or reason to believe, in each case, that they are to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_c...=1&oi=scholarr

Judicial review by the SCOTUS is not that hard to follow.

[TSA]

Comey lawyer, not TSA.

Comey rewrote the statute in order to let Clinton off. I'm sure this was from being pressured by Lynch.


18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any do ent, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—

Shall be fined under this le or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

[RandomGuy]

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_c...=1&oi=scholarr

Judicial review by the SCOTUS is not that hard to follow.

Thanks.

I wasn't going to work too hard to find it, but that would do. I seem to remember reading up on that at some point.

As noted, it seems intent was central to the decision, made by the professional lawyers that there was not really a case.

The only case to be made was that of ignorance/stupidity, which was made by Comey.

The whole thing reminds me of a trope from Ted Tomorrow "Conservative Jones".

[RandomGuy]

Comey rewrote the statute in order to let Clinton off. I'm sure this was from being pressured by Lynch.


18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any do ent, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—

Shall be fined under this le or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

Good start.

Now find the definition of "gross negligence". Your citation seems to hinge on it, c'est va?

[RandomGuy]

Can you find the word "intent" in the laws concerning the handling of classified information?

Your claim, your burden of proof, not mine.

You need definitions, citations, and legal precedent showing generally how the law is applied.

Go forth.

Bull has been called.

[RandomGuy]

[Random guy] cannot [find the word "intent" in the statutes governing the handling of classified information].

(a) Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE...p37-sec793.htm

[TSA]

Good start.

Now find the definition of "gross negligence". Your citation seems to hinge on it, c'est va?

gross negligence
noun

an extremely careless action or an omission that is willful or reckless disregard for the consequences to the safety or property of another; also called very great negligence, culpa lata

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/gross-negligence?s=t


Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information (Comey rewriting the law), there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. For example, seven email chains were classified at the ‘Top Secret Special Access Program’ at the time they were sent and received...There is evidence to support the conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the positions of those with whom she was corresponding about those matters, should have known an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”

[TSA]

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE...p37-sec793.htm

Yet you didn't find it in the applicable section I am referencing.

[RandomGuy]

gross negligence
noun

an extremely careless action or an omission that is willful or reckless disregard for the consequences to the safety or property of another; also called very great negligence, culpa lata

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/gross-negligence?s=t


Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information (Comey rewriting the law), there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. For example, seven email chains were classified at the ‘Top Secret Special Access Program’ at the time they were sent and received...There is evidence to support the conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the positions of those with whom she was corresponding about those matters, should have known an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”

That Virginia Vineyard

Among the dozens of properties President Trump owns is Trump Vineyard Estates and Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia, the source of his namesake wine. On December 23, the property requested temporary H-2A visas for six foreign workers, according to The Washington Post; on February 17, BuzzFeed reported an additional request that upped the total to 29. The visas, which are administered by the Citizenship and Immigration Services wing of the Department of Homeland Security, allow businesses to temporarily hire foreign, unskilled workers provided that the employer proves that there are not enough domestic candidates to fulfill a one-time or seasonal shortage and that the hiring will not depress wages for U.S.-born employees. Trump, of course, appointed the current Secretary of Homeland Security, which gives Trump authority over the very department responsible for deciding whether to grant the visas that the vineyard has requested. His choice for the position, the retired general John Kelly has a relatively scant track record when it comes to immigration, leaving open the question of how much influence Trump himself will have over the DHS’s policy on the matter.

On top of the fact that Trump will soon be able to influence the outcome of the request, that his organization has continued to request visas after his election underscores a tension in the president’s stance on immigration. From the moment that he announced that he would be running for president, Trump made antagonism toward immigration the central aspect of his campaign, arguing that both legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs that should be filled by native-born Americans and depressing wages for others. Though he did not specifically single out the H-2B visa, the president has on multiple occasions spoken critically about the H-1B program, which enables employers to temporarily hire foreign workers for skilled jobs like those in the tech industry.

But the Trump Organization has long been a beneficiary of immigrant labor. For example, according to a Reuters report from August 2015, nine companies of which Trump is the majority owner have requested at least 1,100 foreign visas since 2000. The majority of these requests were from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, which has requested at least 787 foreign visas since 2006, including 70 applications in 2015. (Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that, since 2010, only 17 of the nearly 300 domestic applicants for positions at the Mar-a-Lago have been hired.) The Trump Organization also famously may have benefited from illegal immigration: There is significant evidence that many of the Polish construction workers at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980 were in the country illegally. In other words, Trump’s track record includes not just taking advantage of the very visa process he claims to abhor but also actually subverting existing law for his own profit. Now, by applying for visas for his vineyard, Trump is signaling that he expects that his business will continue to be able to profit from one of the very immigration programs he continually denounces.

"willful".
will·ful
/ˈwilfəl/
adjective
US
adjective: wilful; adjective: willful

(of an immoral or illegal act or omission) intentional; deliberate.

[RandomGuy]

Yet you didn't find it in the applicable section I am referencing.

That Las Vegas Labor Dispute

On top of owning various properties and enterprises, Trump and his company employ roughly 34,000 people, according to an analysis by CNN. On December 21, several hundred of those workers resolved a labor dispute against the president—one in which, had it continued for even a few weeks more, Trump would have had the unprecedented power to make appointments to affect its outcome.

Here’s the situation: In October 2015, several hundred employees, primarily housekeeping staff, at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas voted to join the local branch of the Culinary Workers Union. Trump Ruffin Commercial LLC, which owns the hotel and is itself owned by Trump and the casino magnate Phil Ruffin, contested the vote, first by enlisting an anti-union consulting firm (for whose services it paid $500,000) and then by filing complaints with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Shortly before the election, the NLRB not only rejected Trump and Ruffin’s complaints but also found that, because the pair had refused to negotiate with the nascent union, they had violated federal law and their hotel was operating illegally. Trump and Ruffin have since appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

On December 21, more than a year after the hotel’s workers first voted to join the union, the workers announced that they arrived at their first collectively-bargained contract, achieved, according to an employee quoted in ThinkProgress, despite significant pressure from ownership that attempting to unionize would cost workers their jobs. According to the union, the new agreement “will provide the employees with annual wage increases, a pension, family health care, and job security” comparable to that of other Las Vegas hotels. Moreover, the Culinary Workers Union’s parent organization, UNITE HERE, has reached an agreement to represent workers at Trump’s recently-opened hotel in Washington, D.C..

Although this dispute has been resolved, it is included here because it exemplifies the type of situation in which Trump’s business interests are likely to overlap with his duties as president. Trump will be tasked with appointing members to fill current openings on the NLRB, the very body that ruled against him shortly before the election and will be tasked with resolving any future disputes between the hotel’s owners and its employees. Moreover, as Slate noted, the chief justice of the D.C. Court of Appeals is none other than Merrick Garland, whose nomination to the Supreme Court has spent months languishing in the Republican-controlled Congress and was withdrawn once Trump became president. Finally, if disputes of this nature go beyond the Court of Appeals, the case would go to the Supreme Court, to which Trump will be appointing a justice, which is expected to tip the balance decisively in a more conservative (and likely anti-union) direction. In other words, no matter how far up the chain future disputes of this nature go, Trump’s presidency will give him new power to influence the results.

[TSA]

"willful".
will·ful
/ˈwilfəl/
adjective
US
adjective: wilful; adjective: willful

(of an immoral or illegal act or omission) intentional; deliberate.

Clinton had classified headers willfully removed in order to send do ents. Clinton willfully set up illegal unprotected servers and the willfully wiped the data from the same servers.

If you can not admit she willfully intended to do any of this you are being dishonest here and there is no point in discussing further. Comey was pressured by Lynch and Comey let your girl off the hook.

[RandomGuy]

Clinton had classified headers willfully removed in order to send do ents. Clinton willfully set up illegal unprotected servers and the willfully wiped the data from the same servers.

If you can not admit she willfully intended to do any of this you are being dishonest here and there is no point in discussing further. Comey was pressured by Lynch and Comey let your girl off the hook.

Those Certificates of Dives ure

In addition to the many possibilities for President Trump to pursue his financial interests in office, the unique makeup of his cabinet also creates a new set of financial motivations. While Trump’s own fortune automatically makes his administration the wealthiest in history, he has also surrounded himself with an unprecedented collection of billionaires and multi-millionaires whose investments are likely to also come under scrutiny.

Unlike the president himself, those who are up for Trump’s cabinet, such as his proposed Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, will be legally obligated to divest from any holdings which may pose a conflict of interest. However, as The Washington Post noted, even selling off their holdings offers an opportunity for Trump’s cabinet members to enhance their fortunes. A federal program known as a “certificate of dives ure” allows executive-branch appointees and employees to avoid capital-gains taxes when selling their assets. The program has existed since 1989, and most recently received attention when President George W. Bush appointed Hank Paulson, then the chief executive of Goldman Sachs as his Treasury Secretary in 2006. Paulson was forced to sell off $700 million in shares of the bank; the certificate of dives ure enabled him to avoid a potential $200 million in capital-gains tax liability. According to The Washington Post, the Office of Government Ethics is currently researching whether the president himself would qualify for the tax break; even if he doesn’t, the unprecedented wealth of Trump’s cabinet promises to push this provision, and the financial incentives it creates, to the limit.

(shrugs)

Again, I am not taking your word for anything "she" did. I didn't look at all the evidence in its totality, and neither did you. You have a VERY specific point of view, so it makes it very hard to take your interpretation of things at face value.

In the end, I will simply have to trust that competent people did their jobs as honestly as they could.

If you think Lynch obstructed justice, and Comey demurred, then make that case too.

*

[Pavlov]

So Trump to be putting big ankle lady in jail now!

Or Lynch pressure him?

[spurraider21]

"willful".
will·ful
/ˈwilfəl/
adjective
US
adjective: wilful; adjective: willful

(of an immoral or illegal act or omission) intentional; deliberate.

According to the text of the statute you can be found guilty in 2 ways.

1) handling the info with gross negligence (ie known or should have known that it was being mishandled)
2) intentionally omitting to report such conduct

The intentional element only applies to the latter. Should be noted that gross negligence is a higher burden than typical civil negligence

The real question is if this is the statute they tried to apply to Clinton.

[TSA]

(shrugs)

Again, I am not taking your word for anything "she" did. I didn't look at all the evidence in its totality, and neither did you. You have a VERY specific point of view, so it makes it very hard to take your interpretation of things at face value.

You don't need to my word for any of it as it is all public record. There are emails instructing to remove classified headers---fact. Clinton set up unsecured servers in her basement---fact. Clinton had her IT team wipe the data---fact.

In the end, I will simply have to trust that competent people did their jobs as honestly as they could.

If you think Lynch obstructed justice, and Comey demurred, then make that case too.

*

I don't think she would be charged for obstruction of justice, but I think she made it known to Comey that nothing would come of the Clinton email matter.

[spurraider21]

Also I'm confused, is randomguy really now arguing that gross negligence means intentional?

[RandomGuy]

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/cli...d-information/

We now know from the FBI investigation that:
◾More than 2,000 of the 30,490 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department contained classified information, including 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained classified information at the time they were sent or received. (Most emails were retroactively deemed to contain classified information by the U.S. agencies from which the information originated.)
◾Some of the emails containing classified information “bore markings indicating the presence of classified information,” contrary to Clinton’s claims that none was marked classified. Comey did not provide a specific number.
◾“[S]everal thousand work-related emails” were not turned over to the State Department in 2014, but were recovered by the FBI. Comey said “three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received.”

So here is the problem.

How do you prove intent?

“Only a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information,” Comey said. “But even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”

Update, July 7: Comey told Congress that three emails sent and received by Clinton had “portion markings” — a letter “C” in the body of the emails — indicating the presence of classified information. The State Department said it believes that at least two of the emails were marked in error. We have written a separate story that provides more details.

FWIW.

Interested me enough to dig a bit.

Enough there to show she herself probably got away with it, IMO. Case would have been politically charged and almost impossible to litigate. Can't blame them for shying away from it.

That Caribbean Villa

President Donald Trump has another property on the market: Le Château des Palmiers, his estate on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. The president’s company bought the 11-bedroom beachfront compound in 2013, and the Trump Organization has been using it as a rental property ever since. It’s listed at $6,000 per night on TripAdvisor; according to specialty sites such as Luxury Retreats, which lists the price as between $6,000 and $20,000, and Mansion Global, which places the upper limit at $28,000, the price increases substantially during the winter, when the Caribbean offers an escape from cold weather. According to the disclosure forms Trump submitted to the Federal Election Commission (which remain the only public do entation of his finances), he derived between $100,001 and $1 million from the property in the year leading up to May 2016.

The asking price for Le Château des Palmiers remains unknown. The Trump Organization is selling the property through the real-estate agency and auction house Sotheby’s; according to the listing for the complex, the price is available only upon request. However, there are some clues available. On his FEC disclosure forms, Trump lists the property as worth between $5 million and $25 million, which does correspond with the $19.7 million he paid for it four years ago. According to Mansion Global, 7th Heaven, a real-estate brokerage in St. Maarten, has identified the asking price as $28 million, although 7th Heaven’s current page for the property lists the price as “PoA,” or Price on Application.

[RandomGuy]

Now that we have that out of the way:

Does that mean we can allow a sitting president to obstruct justice and generally ignore the cons ution?

Those Reelection-Campaign Funds

For President Donald Trump, it pays to be in constant campaign mode.

Metaphorically, at least, this isn’t unusual; the idea of the “permanent campaign,” a reference to how politicians consider their reelection chances from almost the moment they take office, has been around for decades. Such is the case for Trump, who filed a letter with the Federal Election Commission establishing his eligibility to run for a second term in 2020 just hours after taking the oath of office. Though the letter declares only that he can run, not necessarily that he will run, it gives broad coverage for the president to begin fundraising and holding campaign events, and to do so far earlier in his first term than have previous presidents.


Since doing so, Trump has held several events that, while officially presented as part of his “thank-you tour,” have seemed an awful lot like his campaign rallies. Meanwhile, between merchandise sales and an already-active fundraising effort, he has raised more than $7.1 million, and the Republican National Committee has raised an additional $23 million. That’s not necessarily noteworthy by itself; by this time, President Obama and the Democratic National Committee had raised $15 million. (Obama had not yet filed for eligibility in 2012 three months into his first term, although he had held events to promote his economic-stimulus package.) What does make Trump unusual is that he has already spent $6.3 million of his reelection campaign funds—and, according to reports he recently filed with the FEC, he is paying some of that money to his own personal businesses—for instance, renting space at his hotels or golfing on his courses—thereby literally profiting off of his permanent campaign.

This practice is nothing new for Trump. As early as 2000, he was speculating that he “could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it” by patronizing his own businesses and running the campaign out of one of his properties. During his 2016 bid, he did exactly that, establishing his political headquarters in Trump Tower (and quintupling the rent as soon as he became the Republican nominee and began drawing funds from the party rather than his personal war chest). Shortly before his victory, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s campaign had paid out the unprecedented sum of more than $14 million to his family and companies for such services as flights on his personal airplanes, rent at Trump Tower, and meals and hotel rooms at other Trump buildings.

[RandomGuy]

Do we normalize people running for president of the country to ask for help in the election from hostile foreign powers trying to destroy liberal democracy?

That Second Hotel in Washington, D.C.

There may soon be more than one Trump Hotel in Washington D.C. According to The Washington Post, the Trump Organization is considering purchasing another property in the nation’s capital to develop for its recently created Scion brand, which aims to offer a more affordable alternative to the upscale properties bearing the president’s name.

Unlike the Trump International Hotel—the upscale property that opened in September 2016 and has become something of a synecdoche for the president’s conflicts of interest—a new Scion hotel in D.C. would likely be a licensing deal. That means that, rather than the Trump Organization owning and operating the property itself, a third-party hotelier will be paying the president’s company for the right to use the Scion name; candidates identified by the Post include Foxhall Partners, which has two properties in the city and a third under development, and the Beacon Hotel in downtown D.C.

But even if it isn’t actually owned or operated by the Trump Organization, the new hotel would likely attract scrutiny along the same lines as the Trump International. A licensing agreement means that the president will not be profiting off of the building directly; payments from individuals or organizations booking rooms or events there will not go straight to the Trump Organization, but to the hotelier. But Trump will still have a financial stake in the hotel’s viability: The longer it stays in business and the more successful it is, the more (and longer) the licensee will pay to use the Scion name, and the more likely other owners may be to commit to similar partnerships with the fledgling brand. Trump has resigned from his positions with the Trump Organization and transferred control of his assets to his two adult sons and a long-time business partner. But he still owns the company, which means he will still profit from his properties. According to his son Eric, the president will even continue to receive quarterly reports on how his real-estate empire is faring financially. The pathway to Trump’s pocketbook may be slightly more complicated, but it still exists.

Tone at the top.

Hillary mishandling classified emails sets a bad tone. She should have been held to account for it. See how easy that is?

Now, what do we do or should we think about the Republican? Is he innocent of any corruption because of the magic "R"?

[RandomGuy]

But it is Trump’s financing from Russian satellite business interests that would seem to explain his pro-Putin sympathies.

Read more: This Is How the Trump Campaign May Have Interfered With Russia Policy

The most obvious example is Trump Soho, a complicated web of financial intrigue that has played out in court. A lawsuit claimed that the business group, Bayrock, underpinning Trump Soho was supported by criminal Russian financial interests. While its initial claim absolved Trump of knowledge of those activities, Trump himself later took on the group’s principal partner as a senior advisor in the Trump organization.

“Tax evasion and money-laundering are the core of Bayrock’s business model,” the lawsuit said of the financiers behind Trump Soho. The financing came from Russian-affiliated business interests that engaged in criminal activities, it said. “(But) there is no evidence Trump took any part in, or knew of, their racketeering.”

Journalists who’ve looked at the Bayrock lawsuit, and Trump Soho, wonder why Trump was involved at all. “What was Trump thinking entering into business with partners like these?” Franklin Foer wrote in Slate. “It’s a question he has tried to banish by downplaying his ties to Bayrock.”

But Bayrock wasn’t just involved with Trump Soho. It financed multiple Trump projects around the world, Foer wrote. “(Trump) didn’t just partner with Bayrock; the company embedded with him. Bayrock put together deals for mammoth Trump-named, Trump-managed projects—two in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a resort in Phoenix, the Trump SoHo in New York.”

But, as The New York Times has reported, that was only the beginning of the Trump organization’s entanglement with Russian financiers. Trump was quite taken with Bayrock’s founder, Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet-era commerce official originally from Kazakhstan.

“Bayrock, which was developing commercial properties in Brooklyn, proposed that Mr. Trump license his name to hotel projects in Florida, Arizona and New York, including Trump SoHo,” the Times reported. “The other development partner for Trump SoHo was the Sapir Organization, whose founder, Tamir Sapir, was from the former Soviet republic of Georgia

http://time.com/4433880/donald-trump-ties-to-russia/

[RandomGuy]

The Times also reported that federal court records recently released showed yet another link to Russian financial interests in Trump businesses. A Bayrock official “brokered a $50 million investment in Trump SoHo and three other Bayrock projects by an Icelandic firm preferred by wealthy Russians ‘in favor with’ President Vladimir V. Putin,’” the Times reported. “The Icelandic company, FL Group, was identified in a Bayrock investor presentation as a ‘strategic partner,’ along with Alexander Mashkevich, a billionaire once charged in a corruption case involving fees paid by a Belgian company seeking business in Kazakhstan; that case was settled with no admission of guilt.”

Trump Soho was so complicated that Bayrock’s finance chief, Jody Kriss, sued it for fraud. In the lawsuit, Kriss alleged that a primary source of funding for Trump’s big projects with Bayrock arrived “magically” from sources in Russia and Kazakhstan whenever the business interest needed funding.