Why the U.S. is Losing Ground in the Fight Against Dirty Money

In this episode of Integrity Insights, we speak with Casey Michel, investigative journalist and Head of the Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation in New York City. Casey is the author of American Kleptocracy and Foreign Agents, two seminal books on the mechanisms of global illicit finance and foreign influence operations.

Our discussion focuses on the United States’ recent retreat from its longstanding leadership in global anti-corruption efforts. Casey explains how key legislative tools, such as the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), are no longer being meaningfully enforced—despite being landmark steps in combating financial secrecy and foreign bribery just a few years ago.

We explore:

• Why the U.S. became the world’s biggest hub for illicit finance.
• How lobbying efforts and state-level interests undermined the CTA.
• The implications of the Department of Justice’s recent decision to narrow FCPA enforcement to matters of "U.S. strategic interest".
• Concerns that enforcement tools are being politicised, potentially weaponised against foreign or domestic political opponents.
• How these rollbacks have severely damaged U.S. credibility and leadership in global anti-corruption efforts.

Casey also places this regression in historical context, suggesting we may be in a modern “Gilded Age” but offers hope by pointing to past cycles of reform following periods of entrenched corruption.

Finally, we ask: can anyone step into the void left by the U.S.? While no single actor currently matches the scope of American enforcement powers, Casey sees signs of renewed leadership from Europe—particularly in the UK, France, and Switzerland—and stresses the need for greater transnational coordination going forward.

Listen to this episode for a deep dive into the shifting landscape of anti-corruption enforcement and what it means for democracies around the world.

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Transcript

Casey, welcome on the podcast. Philip. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Uh, so to start us off, would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about, uh, about yourself? Sure. Uh, my name is Casey Michelle. I am the director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation here in beautiful New York City.

Uh, as you can tell from my thick American accent, I am an American. And I previously worked an investigative journalist, um, for a number of publications, uh, primarily on how and why, uh, foreign corrupt networks. Come to and hide so much of their money right here in the United States of America, what they're doing with that money, what kind of industries they are investing in, what kind of policy loopholes they are taking advantage of.

And then beyond that, what that means for policy decisions in places like Washington or London or Berlin or Brussels or elsewhere. These topics that I have focused on and written on, um. Uh, have kind of combined into the broader world of kleptocracy, transnational money laundering, and how regimes around the world take advantage of international corruption, uh, networks and I have written two books on the topic.

The first was called American Kleptocracy on the USS Transformation. Into the world's greatest offshore and financial Secrecy Haven, and the second book came out last year called Foreign Agents on the Rise and Explosion of the Foreign Lobbying Industry in Washington, and all of the Americans who are now working directly for some of these regimes that I'm sure will be talking about today.

Thank you very much for this, for this, for this introduction. Uh, I also wanna talk about the books, but, uh, can you maybe just, uh. Uh, say a couple of words about the, the Human Rights Foundation because I, I, I don't think everyone is necessarily familiar with this organization. Sure. The Human Rights Foundation has been around for nearly 20 years.

We have a primary focus on supporting those who are on the. Front lines in the fight for democracy around the world, uh, primarily in places that we classify as autocracies, uh, dictatorships, and of course kleptocratic regimes, uh, across the, um, across the world. These are places like Russia, Iran. China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, the list goes on and on and on.

And we work with those activists, those researchers, uh, those uh, journalists, uh, on the ground that are trying to expose the corruption inherent to those regimes and trying to push for democratic reforms as well. Our annual conference, which Philip, you are certainly invited to next year. It takes place every May or June in Oslo, Norway.

It's called the Oslo Freedom Forum. It's primarily what we are known for a multi-day affair that brings together democracy activists from across the globe. It's an incredible event and certainly the most inspiring thing that I get to take part in, uh, um, throughout the year. Well, this is really interesting and I think if I, if I.

If I remember this correctly, the chairperson of this organization is Julia Naval, is it correct? That is correct. She is the recently appointed chairperson. Uh, she has replaced our former chairperson, Gary Kasparov, who, uh, helped lead the organization for many, many years. It is an honor to work with the Human Rights Foundation and is extremely humbling to be able to work next to some of these people who have sacrificed absolutely everything, um, for the cause of democracy.

Yeah. Well, that, that must be a really tremendously inspiring environment. Um, all right, let's, uh, let's get back to those books. Uh, I actually have the, the second one, the, the one on foreign agents right here in front of me. Uh, but I wanted to ask you about the first one, the, the, the book that you wrote in 2021, where you.

When you say that the, the United States has evolved into essential hub for global illicit finance and an attractive destination for corrupt actors seeking to launder money and legitimize ill-gotten gains. And, uh, this, so as I said, this was published in 2021. Uh, would you say that all of this still applies today in 2025?

Unfortunately, yes. Uh, when I. Wrote that book, uh, and it was published in late 2021. It did appear that there was significant progress being made, and that was, that was for many different reasons, some of which were domestic in the United States, some of which were international. And again, it wasn't the United States.

That was the only one making progress on this. We also saw progress in the United Kingdom in the European Union. In Canada, in Australia and some of these other jurisdictions that have been taking in so much of this illicit wealth for years and years. But in the United States of America, the biggest single piece of progress, perhaps the biggest piece of progress in American history was the passage of something called the Corporate Transparency Act, or CTA, that was the acronym.

Um, and what it did at a very basic level. Was required transparency for anyone and everyone setting up a shell company in the United States of America. This was really the key factor that transformed the United States for years and years into the central jurisdiction, the central country, where all of this dirty money was coming to be found and to be cleaned because in the United States of America.

Anyone, you, me, anyone with a, uh, with a phone or, or with email access could set up an anonymous shell company in 15 minutes for as little as a hundred dollars and completely remove any identifying information about where that money was coming from, who that money belonged to, or what that money might end up doing.

And what we saw in 2021 was finally the passage of something called the Corporate Transparency Act, which was, again, very simple. It simply required people to identify who was behind those shell companies. You could, you could still set it up, you could still do it quickly, you could still do it for very, um, uh, very little money.

You just had to identify who you were or who you were doing it on behalf of. That's all that it required, and that was a massive step forward. Um. Perhaps a little bit of a, a spoiler for the book and maybe for this conversation, Philip, is that that legislation, even though it still exists, is no longer being enforced.

It is still on the books, but it is only being enforced for things like, um, fentanyl dealers out of Mexico, and a few other very particular subsets, which means, unfortunately, by anyone's guess, the United States is still the world's biggest sensor for offshore finance and financial secrecy. Uh, and before we get into this issue of enforcement, why, why do you think, because as you said, the, uh, the, the US Corporate Transparency Act was enacted in 2021, and there were similar initiatives underway already in, in, in the European Union as of, I think 2015, in the uk 2016.

Why do you think it took, uh, so much longer, uh, the US to implement this? Well, the, the, the short answer is because there was so much money to be made. From setting up all of these different networks because whether it was the individual private entities, the shell company operators that were actually the ones filing the paperwork, actually the ones organizing these shell companies, or whether it was particular American states, because in the United States of America, the us, like Germany, still a, a, a federal nation, federal, federal structure, and in the US uh, shell company or, or even company formation is not overseen by the.

The, the national government, the federal government in Washington, it's overseen by particular American states. And so there were a number of states, places like Delaware, places like Nevada, places like Wyoming, that uh, created these, uh, the, the legal architecture that allowed all of the secrecy that any Kleptocrat needed for their shell companies.

And these state legislators were actually making money as well. I remember in, um, the state of Nevada, it was. Kind of a, an ingenious move where they tied all of the money coming in from setting up shell companies. They, they would take a small percentage, a small cut of every shell company. They tied that directly to paying for all of the teachers in the state of Nevada.

So when you, when you have legislation like that, it becomes all of a sudden very difficult to argue that, well, we should eliminate anonymous shell companies. Even if that means Nevada teachers are no longer paid, I mean, again, it was a very savvy political move, but you, you have all of these elements of opposition because there were so many, both private and public entities that were making money along the way.

I, I, I remember the very first piece of legislation in the us. To try to eliminate shell companies was all the way back in 2008. So it took, what is that, 12, 13 years to just get this one piece of legislation passed. And again, it was finally passed. But you can pass as much legislation if you as you want.

If you're not enforcing it, it doesn't really matter. And I mean, we, we will, we'll speak about the issue of enforcement, but let's say if it, if the, uh, the law as it is now, if it was enforced, would you say that if it's, it's enough that it's, you know, effective in, uh, tackling this issue, you can always have more.

Funding for enforcement. You can always have more resources for prosecutors, for investigators, for those that are trying to expose and track some of these networks. You know, one of the big issues with this piece of legislation is that unlike in other places like the United Kingdom, the new Shell Company registry that it was supposed to create.

It was not going to be publicly accessible, so so you or or I or anyone else with internet access, we, we would not be able to access the information about these shell companies. There's only going to be federal regulators and federal officials in Washington, DC as well as some partner governments elsewhere, that that was a, that was a big issue.

That means that there are fewer researchers who can actually look into this. But even with all of those issues, this was still a massive step forward because it made legally liable those people who were setting up these anonymous shell companies that now required them, uh, you know, under the pain of, of, of legal enforcements.

To actually declare and disclose who they were setting up these shell companies, uh, for who was actually behind them. So again, even though it had issues, and it was certainly not perfect, uh, it was still perhaps the biggest step forward ever in American history. On the topic of kleptocracy and the, the issue of en enforcement, uh, I think this was just recently that Finon announced that.

This is the author responsible for enforcing, uh, the law that, uh, they won't be enforcing it, there won't be any penalties for, uh, for, uh, not, not, uh, complying with this legislation. What is, why, why did this happen there? That is a, that is an excellent question, and we still need to see. Much more reportage and, uh, revelation about what those conversations actually looks like and who was advocating for this now, the best working theory.

Is that there were certain lobbying groups in Washington that were advocating against this legislation. And again, this gets back to some of the private entities that were making significant amounts of money, setting up these anonymous shell companies. There's one lobbying group called the National Federation for Independent Businesses, which is supposed to be this small business lobby.

Which again, in the United States of America, it's difficult to argue against small businesses. Americans still have this image in their mind of, you know, local stores or local restaurants that are run by, you know, grandparents. We call them mom and pop stores that are parts of the local communities.

That's what we think of when we imagine small businesses. But it turns out some of these small businesses are also the ones that are. Selling the shell companies in states like Delaware and Nevada and Wyoming, and we know they have been lobbying for years and years, again, against legislation like this.

So the, the, the best theory is that those lobbyists simply ended up being successful. They had the right contacts, they had the right connections. And of course this gets to. Kind of a broader political theory of deregulation, of cutting the federal government of, of unnecessary regulation that those who are opposed to this legislation, they can also look to and say, look, we don't need this.

This is the federal government stepping in where it should but not be stepping. And we're gonna do away with all of these paperwork so that local American businesses can thrive. Um. But it will take some more reporting to actually get a firm idea of just what those conversations looked like. And of course, what can be done about it in the future.

But, so if I understand you correctly, you don't necessarily think that this is anything to do, uh, with the matter of like political. Power in terms of the presidency, who is in power right now in the United States? I, I don't wanna put this all on the feet of, of one person, because I suspect if there had been a different Republican administration, we would've seen certainly similar pressures, right?

Maybe not going about it this way, but you know, you can't also discuss the fact that Donald Trump. Previously as a businessman, although perhaps continuing as as president as well, has an incredibly deep history with shell companies in the United States of America. We know from other reporting that his businesses, his buildings, including right here in New York City, were an extremely popular destination for shell companies hiding dirty money from regime after regime around the world, whether in Russia, whether in the Democratic Republic of Congo, whether in Venezuela.

The list goes on and on and on. Uh, and of course. That means that the Trump organization and Donald Trump himself made money from selling these apartments, these condos to shell companies themselves. And of course, Donald Trump himself has also set up a number of shell companies on his own and in the past.

So yes, there is absolutely reason to believe that the figure of Donald Trump as president brought a, um, shall we say, maybe a unique ingredient to, um, reasons that the. Corporate Transparency Act was, um, uh, was rolled back and is no longer being enforced. And yes, that is of course also extremely concerning because of the implications for what that means for American democracy and American policy making.

If these foreign regimes know that there is a, an easy and unenforced way to get into the president's pocket, of course they are going to take advantage of that. And do you see, I don't know to what extent you follow also the, the, these debates in in the European Union, but do you see any parallels to.

What, what is happening here because we, we already had all across the block, basically those UBO registries in place, they were accessible for, for, for anyone, anyone interested. And as of 2020 2 22, basically there was this European Court of Justice ruling. And, uh, now they have the, these, these registries have been rolled back.

Not, not, not in all member states, but in certain countries. They're, no, no, no longer accessible. Like, do you see any parallels there? I mean, absolutely. I do. And, and I see the parallels for, for, for a few reasons. Not only because the European Union is of course also a federal structure or loosely federal structure, certainly looser than the United States of America.

Um, but also this kind of progress and regress these two steps forward, one and a half steps back taking place. And the, the reason, the additional reason I see the parallels is because. These policy solutions don't take place in a vacuum. You know, these dirty money networks that you and I are talking about today, they don't exist in only, only one country.

This is dirty money that crosses borders, crosses oceans, crosses entire hemispheres. It's transnational in its. Nature and it requires a transnational response. Um, so even though we are seeing American legislation or even European Union regulations come down the pipeline, it is only because those in the us, those in Canada, Australia, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, et cetera.

Have been speaking to one another and have been learning the lessons and seeing what's been taking place in the United Kingdom or in the United States, or in the European Union. The list goes on and on, and it's also been about lessons learned from those that are advocating on this end, but it's also lessons learned from those who oppose these specific pieces of legislation, and I have no doubt that those who oppose it in the United States are looking at European partners and seeing what has worked and also vice versa.

So yes, it is. Mm-hmm. It's certainly not limited to the US or to the European Union. I actually have a lot of, uh, a lot of questions on this, on this topic, but unfortunately we need to, we need to move on. But, uh, another flagship piece of legislation, uh. In this, uh, anti-corruption space that I wanted to discuss is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Can you maybe also just briefly, uh, talk us through what, what this is all about? Sure. Yeah. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA because the United States of America loves. To shorten things into their acronyms, um, is, uh, a piece of legislation that is almost 50 years old at this point. It was created in 1977.

Uh, and it is an extremely piece, uh, a simple piece of legislation. It makes it illegal for any American businessman, for any American company to bribe a foreign official or a foreign government. Um, I mean, look, you and I are speaking here in 2025, it seems. Fairly obvious that American businessmen or maybe even western businessmen should not be bribing corrupt officials in any country around the world.

Russia, China, Guatemala, Gabo. The list goes on and on. But when this piece of legislation was introduced and signed in 1977, there was really no. Reality. There was no theory, there's no understanding about why that should be illegal in the first place. That was just the cost of doing business. And I don't know if it was the case in the United States, but I remember reading that in France and in Germany and in the United Kingdom and a few other jurisdictions, it was actually a tax write off to bribe foreign officials themselves.

I mean, this is how accepted this legislation was. But then the United States passes, or I'm sorry, how accepted this business practice was. Uh, but then this legislation is passed in the United States of America, and things slowly, slowly, slowly begin to change. We eventually see similar legislation in Canada, in Germany, in France, the United Kingdom that make it illegal for businessmen and companies in those countries to directly bribe foreign officials and foreign governments.

And in the United States of America, this has really been the bedrock. Of American anti-corruption policy that everything is kind of built upon, not only structurally because of what a common practice this was, is now illegal, but because of the kind of precedent that this set for in many ways American leadership in the anti-corruption space.

And we have seen many other pieces of legislation that have flowed afterward. It's funny because in, in the United States, even through 2025 there, there really isn't, there hasn't been. This kind of upswell of opposition to the FCPA, like we saw with the Shell Company registry. It, it had, it really had become the kind of accepted law of the land that no one was really concerned about until, as I'm sure we're gonna talk about until earlier this year, when there were some other decisions that were taken.

But I think it's also important to mention that this, this law doesn't affect only US companies, right? Like you, you can also prosecute. Foreign companies, uh, based on, based on this legislation, you can, any companies, any foreign companies that are either registered with American Securities on the American Stock Exchange or that do any business in dollars, um, using American financial institutions as clearing houses or even have any kind of American bank accounts.

And again, it's, it's not just. Companies themselves, but this also goes for individuals as well. You know, oligarchs around the world, so on and so forth. Uh, yes, absolutely can be prosecuted. And for years, the American Department of Justice has been very aggressive in going after these networks that are engaged in this kind of high level, uh, corruption, including against, uh, foreign companies that are not headquartered in the United.

States of America. So it's funny, I did just mention the lack of opposition to the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the United States. There certainly has been opposition internationally from European companies, and certainly from those regimes that can no longer, uh, assume that they will get a significant bribe from some of these companies.

And so, as you, Casey already alluded to, as of, uh, June, 2025, the US Department of Justice narrowed the. F CPAs focus on, uh, and I quote, matters that relate to us strategic interests. Can you maybe try to explain what this actually means? I I, I've been trying to understand what this means for, for many months now, Philip, as far as anyone can understand the current administration, which, which made that announcement that it will effectively no longer enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

They, and led by President Trump, uh, believe that the FCPA, this, this prohibition on bribing foreign officials, they believe that that is hindering American business. They, they believe that this is an anti-competitive statute that makes it impossible for American businesses to compete with Russian businesses, or perhaps especially Chinese businesses, that are more than willing to bribe corrupt officials for whatever investment and whatever business arrangement they want, and, and.

You can see from a certain angle how that logic does hold up. If a Chinese business is going to, whichever country it might be, and saying, we are willing to pay the dictator, or his children or his friends, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, and the American company says, no, we cannot do that, then.

I would not be surprised if certain dictators say, well, of course we'll go with the Chinese company. But that is a short term benefit for a significantly long term cost because all of a sudden it is China or Russia or whomever it is that is now the one bankrolling this extremely corrupt regime. And of course we know in the medium and in the long term, they're gonna get less services for it.

Whatever the. Investment actually ends up being, will be significantly worse off and it's going to lead to significant blowback in China or in Russia. And it's funny because this is exactly what happened in the United States of America, right before they passed this legislation in the 1970s, there were all of these revelations that American Companie.

And American corporate executives were bribing corrupt officials in not just places like the Honduras or places like Saudi Arabia, but also places like Japan. Also places like the Netherlands. And this led to this extreme rise in anti-American blowback. And ironically, the significant growth of the Communist Party in places like Italy.

So all of it ended up blowing back against American interests, which I have no doubt would've happened in China or Russia. Or wherever else it may be. But now, because American companies apparently have this green light to bribe whoever they want, we're gonna begin seeing this blow back against the United States of America and American interest as well.

So it's a, it's an extremely shortsighted approach that really decimate America's anti-bribery and anti-corruption credentials. Would you say that it's possible to expect that the Department of Justice will now focus its enforcement, uh, actions? Only on foreign companies and basically thereby making it, you know, to eliminate foreign competition for US companies.

So this is an extreme concern about the direction we're heading in right now, Philip, because it's not just enforcement related to to bribery, it's also enforcement or even designation of. Entities that, that are, are sanctioned, um, and whether or not the American Department of Justice and the American White House or Treasury Department or any other arm of the, of the current administration will use these tools that are available to them to target and prosecute not only any company or country that is opposed to American interest or American companies in their interests, but is specifically opposed to the current administrations.

Interests, including domestic political interests. So the concern is that the federal government has this incredible toolkit of prosecutions, of sanctions designations. The list goes on and on. And for years that had been used in at least a theoretically neutral way without any specific direction from the president.

Maybe there are some high level directions, but beyond that, it was relatively hands off. Now the concern is that all those tools are simply gonna be used against. Perhaps the president's enemies. Certainly domestic, but as well as foreign themselves. And if I'm an American company, if I'm an American corporation, not only am I trying to remain in the good graces of the current administration of the current president, but I am going to the administration and saying, Hey.

German steel company, this Italian telecom, this, uh, um, Swedish manufacturing plant is digging into some of our business is, is hampering some of our business interests. Wouldn't it be a good idea if the American Department of Justice opened an investigation into what they were doing, who they were paying?

And again, they don't have to necessarily be found guilty for any of this. But even that hint, even the opening of investigation can be extremely debilitating to any business interest. I mean, this is, um, you know, in a, in a certain way, this was always the risk that was being run in allowing this was always going to be a potential cost and allowing for the, the growth and the success.

Of a policy like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act without any guarantee that it could someday be potentially abused by a future administration. And I, I, I am concerned that this is the direction things will go in, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month, but in the years to come, that will again, not only be extremely shortsighted about what American interests actually are, but degrade these capabilities for the future.

What had been a wonderful tool I, I. I would not be surprised if you and I are speaking in five or 10 years and it's very clear that the best days are behind us. That was a depressing answer. I'm so sorry to make it even more depressing. Would you, would you go, would you go as far as to say that the, the current US administration has essentially legalized corruption?

I. What I would say and what I have written in the past is that what we have seen in terms of the announcements about lack of enforcement for things like the Shell Company registry for things like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which again was the basic bedrock of anti-corruption statutes and the US is that the current administration has taken an absolute sledgehammer.

To the US' role as one of the leading forces for anti-corruption, at least enforcement and investigation. And this has been over the last few months, the single greatest stepping back of America's anti-corruption policies and reputation. And it is going to take years, if not generations, to build that back.

Now, what I would also say. Is that, and this is gonna be one of the subjects of my, my next book is that at least throughout American history, there have been certainly not identical, but broadly similar eras of significant corruption. Um, of, uh, the role of, uh, corporate financing in American politics and the degradation of American democracy writ large.

Um, there of, of course, a thousand different elements that are unique to this moment itself and the United States, but there have been, um, uh, similarly depressing and distressing. Eras as well, including in the late 19th, early 20th century. What we describe as the the Gilded Age in the United States of America and also in the early 1970s, um, under the Nixon administration and all of the Watergate and related investigations.

And what those discovered about, uh, just how. High, the levels, uh, and networks of corruption ran in American politics. And what we saw after both of those eras was subsequent eras of reform. So what is called the progressive era under Teddy Roosevelt, his presidency and what followed. And then the post Watergate, the late 1970s and through, on which we actually just talked about, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act being one of those key elements.

So you, you can see these pendulums in American history swinging. Back and forth, and I, I, who knows what the future will hold, but I, I can certainly hope that, um, the history will repeat itself in the not too distant future. And we will see much needed reforms in the United States of America to shore up American democracy.

And to prove that, uh, not all is lost yet. Well, there is a very interesting thought, and I, I, and I, I'm, I'm really looking forward to reading that book by the way. Uh, but the very last question I wanted to ask you kind of, uh, elaborating on this, what you mentioned earlier that the US has this unique position as the leading power in the, in this fight against corruption.

Do you see currently anyone, anyone else in the world, like the European Union or the UK being, have the cap, having the capacity to, to kind of, uh, fill the role? The, the capacity? No, not, not as of, as of right now. And again, that's simply because of the size and the scope and the scale of the American economy, uh, but also the, the kind of the broad reach of the American Justice Department now.

That isn't to say though, that we have seen other countries, other governments elsewhere, realizing that if the US is stepping back and potentially even becoming a threat in this space, then they do need to step forward. And we have seen this out of Britain. We have seen this out of France. I suspect, even though I haven't seen, we've seen similar discussions taking place in Berlin, we've even seen places like Switzerland announce that they would step up with increased enforcement and, and investigations.

And of course, no one country can do this on their own. There needs to be increased coordination and, and, and a reality or a realization that it has to happen internationally and trans nationally. And I. Suspect, and maybe I'm too optimistic about this, but I, I do suspect that will continue as other countries, other governments, other jurisdictions realize that if the US is not gonna be the main player in this, then they need to step up as well.

Um, again, I'm looking for areas of optimism where I can, it's difficult to find them these days, but the fact that you and I are are having this conversation, and again, if, if this was 10 or 12 years ago. You know, we, we would be having a very different conversation. I have to explain so many different terms we've been talking about today, but I I, I do think that even the broader public is generally aware of why and how important it is that some of these networks are dealt with.

Some of these policies, whether it's shell companies or international bribery networks, need to be dealt with. And I only, I can only hope that that momentum will, will continue and we'll look back at this era as a, um, maybe not momentary, because again, we're, you know, Donald Trump was first elected in 26.

Nearly a decade ago, but it, but an era in which we realized how many holes there are and how many threats there are as well. And we knew what to do about it and we took the steps to actually close some of these loopholes and move to a brighter, better future for everyone. And I, and I do really appreciate this little piece of optimism and this otherwise more kind of depressing conversation.

And thank you so much, Casey, for your time. It has been really, truly. Uh, fascinating conversation. I really appreciate it. And yeah, maybe we will speak sometime again when, uh, when there's, when there are some interesting developments. Uh, absolutely. Philip, it was wonderful to speak with you and of course I'm always happy to end on an optimistic note as well.

And it would be great next time we spoke to have a little bit more optimistic news to discuss as well.