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> for the benefit of that other person

What if I route the payment through a third party like my lawyer Mr. Cohen




Then both you and your lawyer go to jail.

When you accept money from someone, it doesn't matter who physically hands you the money, it matters who caused the money to be given to you.


We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435890 and marked it offtopic.


I laughed, but I felt the need to downvote. By the rules, this is off topic, but personally, I'm exhausted by politics being injected into every other topic of conversation. Even if you and I agree politically, I think we can reduce hyper partisanship by not being political in discussions outside of politics. It's the reason this joke exists:

How can you tell whether someone is a vegan or into CrossFit? Because they will tell you about it.


I agree there should be some spaces free of politics. Will avoid.

(The original point was -- if the law is strictly worded such that it is a crime only if there is demonstrable benefit for the person who is paying then the "loophole" exists where the person getting the benefit and the person making the payment can be separated. I could have said the same thing without using the most recent known example of a similar attempt.)

But also crime and fraud are what they are -- whether committed by politicians or business people or those in other professions.

If we are talking about something questionable done by say SBF or Elon Musk and they also have some political connections or leaning -- that might not in itself make the discussion political. Yes there are subtle ways those discussions can carry undertones and phrased to score imaginary points. In that sense avoiding references where possible is advisable - probably akin to 'defensive driving'.




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