[00:00:00] Speaker 03: case number 24-52-97. [00:00:04] Speaker 03: Joseph Pohl Engelhardt and Yvonne Doherty Wade in the balance. [00:00:07] Speaker 03: Diana Camposano versus Pamela Bungie in rock and roll capacity as Attorney General of the United States of America and United States Department of Justice. [00:00:17] Speaker 03: Ms. [00:00:17] Speaker 03: Berman for the balance. [00:00:18] Speaker 03: Mr. Pohl for the deputies. [00:00:21] Speaker 04: Morning. [00:00:22] Speaker 04: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:00:23] Speaker 04: Amanda Berman for Appellants Joseph Engelhardt and Yvonne Wade. [00:00:26] Speaker 04: Two of the more than 20,000 [00:00:28] Speaker 04: American victims of terrorist bombings seeking to fulfill judgments against state sponsors of terrorism for their injuries. [00:00:35] Speaker 04: Your honors, I'd like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal. [00:00:39] Speaker 04: There are two equally simple reasons that all of the BAT proceeds must be deposited to the Victims Fund. [00:00:46] Speaker 04: First, all of the BAT proceeds arise from conspiring with a state sponsor of terrorism, North Korea, when it was a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:00:56] Speaker 04: And second, even if they didn't, they are all penalties imposed for an IEBA conspiracy. [00:01:02] Speaker 04: And the text of the funding provision does not require such proceeds to arise from doing business with a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:01:10] Speaker 04: Turning to my first point, Your Honors, the government charged the BAT defendants with conspiring with North Korea to violate AIIPA and commit bank fraud in order to sell tobacco products to the North Korean government. [00:01:23] Speaker 04: That conspiracy, according to the government itself, and it says this on page 10 of its brief, [00:01:28] Speaker 04: and direct the court to the information at Joint Appendix 73 to 75. [00:01:32] Speaker 04: That conspiracy was in place by 2007, no later than 2007. [00:01:38] Speaker 04: The key formation acts took place in 2005 to 2007 when North Korea was a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:01:46] Speaker 04: So all of the BAT proceeds from that conspiracy thus arise from doing business with a state sponsor of terrorism under any normal interpretation of that broad phrase arising from. [00:01:59] Speaker 04: And I would point this court to its own definition of that phrase, this description of it in Sela versus Titan Court, where it said, it's used to denote any causal connection. [00:02:09] Speaker 04: Or the Supreme Court's definition in the Merrill Lynch versus Manning case, where it says, is it an ingredient? [00:02:16] Speaker 04: Here, doing business with North Korea was an integral ingredient of the BAT conspiracy and causally connected to all of the proceeds. [00:02:25] Speaker 02: Can I ask a clarification question? [00:02:29] Speaker 02: I think both sides of the case agree, but I want to confirm that in the list of, I guess, five possible things, AIPA, Tuya, [00:02:43] Speaker 02: A related criminal conspiracy scheme and another federal offense. [00:02:49] Speaker 02: All the action here, the bank fraud conspiracy and the IEPA conspiracy are in the third of those, any related criminal conspiracy. [00:02:59] Speaker 04: Yes, related conspiracy. [00:03:01] Speaker 04: We both agree with that. [00:03:02] Speaker 02: OK, so then a new question. [00:03:05] Speaker 02: I've been trying to think of a hypothetical to help me think through what arising from encompasses, how long it lasts, how long the conspiracy that arises from something lasts. [00:03:16] Speaker 02: Because you're quite right, the conspiracy here began in 2007. [00:03:20] Speaker 02: And arising from sounds a lot like originating from. [00:03:24] Speaker 02: And I think you may have a winning argument here. [00:03:28] Speaker 02: If I started a fire and the fire spread from house to house to house to house, I think even 10 houses away, that fire arose from my starting the original fire. [00:03:44] Speaker 02: This is helpful to you. [00:03:46] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:03:47] Speaker 02: But [00:03:49] Speaker 02: What if in order for the fire to spread to all 10 houses, I had to light in the first house and then light it in second, light in the third, light in the fourth. [00:03:58] Speaker 02: Then it seems like the second, third, fourth, all the way through 10th houses, those fires did not arise from the first fire. [00:04:05] Speaker 02: And here, the conspiracy would have ended in 2007 if the conspirators had not then sort of lit the new fire in 2008 and then lit another fire in nine and 10, 11, all the way through. [00:04:18] Speaker 02: the end of the conspiracy. [00:04:19] Speaker 02: So why is that not a helpful hypothetical? [00:04:22] Speaker 04: Sure, Your Honor. [00:04:23] Speaker 04: So I don't think that hypothetical aligns here because here they set up this framework, the framework of the 2005 agreement, the 2007 agreement. [00:04:32] Speaker 04: In those parts of the information I referenced, there's a description of the meetings that took place. [00:04:37] Speaker 04: So the mechanism, the whole plan was set up by 2007. [00:04:40] Speaker 04: And then what they did after that was continue to process bank transactions, sort of the later part of the conspiracy. [00:04:46] Speaker 04: So yes, it does extend, but it all goes back to, it all depends on the framework. [00:04:51] Speaker 02: It may depend. [00:04:53] Speaker 02: The framework may be necessary, but not sufficient. [00:04:57] Speaker 02: They had to keep doing bad stuff in 08, 09, 10, 11, etc. [00:05:02] Speaker 02: And if they hadn't kept doing it, then the conspiracy wouldn't have existed in those years. [00:05:09] Speaker 04: True, but the conspiracy also wouldn't have existed in those years but for the stuff they did at the beginning to set the whole thing up. [00:05:17] Speaker 02: I agree with you about it being a but for cause, but but for is not always the cause that matters. [00:05:24] Speaker 02: And the text here is arise from, arising from. [00:05:27] Speaker 02: So how do we know whether necessary but not sufficient is good enough to qualify as arising from? [00:05:35] Speaker 04: Because let's go to this court's definition, any causal connection. [00:05:38] Speaker 04: It's a deliberately broad phrase. [00:05:40] Speaker 04: And we cataloged every circuit in our brief that says that. [00:05:43] Speaker 04: So they could have chose something much more specific. [00:05:45] Speaker 04: For example, in the eligibility provision, the provision about what claims qualify, they used language that very specifically links designated as a state sponsor of terrorism at the time the acts described occurred. [00:05:57] Speaker 04: That's not what they used in the funding provision. [00:06:00] Speaker 04: And that's a choice. [00:06:01] Speaker 04: So we're asking the court to honor [00:06:02] Speaker 04: that distinction, that choice that Congress made. [00:06:07] Speaker 05: Ms. [00:06:07] Speaker 05: Berman, if I can go back to the first question that Judge Walker asked about whether you think that the charge conduct here is an IEPA violation or a related conspiracy. [00:06:19] Speaker 05: I mean, it seems from the plaintiff's complaint that it understood at least the IEPA violations here to be like in the first part of the statute. [00:06:30] Speaker 05: Right. [00:06:30] Speaker 05: A violation of IEPA, not so belated conspiracy. [00:06:35] Speaker 05: I think this actually might matter for a number of reasons. [00:06:38] Speaker 05: So first, I just. [00:06:40] Speaker 05: It seems that your complaint understands it differently from what you just said in argument. [00:06:45] Speaker 04: So, Your Honor, I mean, I think we described it accurately in our complaint. [00:06:48] Speaker 04: We pointed back to the information, which charges two counts of conspiracy. [00:06:53] Speaker 04: But they, you know, the government itself does say there were IEPA violations, but they chose to charge a conspiracy. [00:06:58] Speaker 04: The conspiracy happened when North Korea was a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:07:02] Speaker 05: So my question, though, is, is the IEPA conspiracy in the related conspiracy bucket, or is it just in the IEPA violation? [00:07:11] Speaker 04: We think it's in the related part of the statute. [00:07:16] Speaker 04: And I'm not sure it should matter, Your Honor, and maybe this gets to my second point that I did want to also address today. [00:07:22] Speaker 05: First, I think this characterization is important. [00:07:26] Speaker 05: So I mean, in the information and the statement of offenses, it talks about an IEPA conspiracy. [00:07:31] Speaker 05: It cites to the IEPA conspiracy provision. [00:07:34] Speaker 05: I think it's 50 USC 1705. [00:07:38] Speaker 05: So why wouldn't that be an IEPA violation, not a related conspiracy? [00:07:44] Speaker 04: Well, we have both here, Your Honor, basically, but what the government chose to charge and what the proceeds were paid for. [00:07:51] Speaker 04: So I want to take you back to the provision here. [00:07:53] Speaker 04: You know, all these phrases we're talking about go back to describe the proceeds, the funds forfeited or paid. [00:08:00] Speaker 04: So those funds all arise from the conspiracy here. [00:08:05] Speaker 04: And I think that's important, your honor. [00:08:06] Speaker 05: So, you know, the question though, my question is, do they arise from a violation of any license order, regulation or prohibition issued under IEPA or do they arise from a related criminal conspiracy? [00:08:21] Speaker 04: I think they arise from a related conspiracy because they were paid because these defendants pled guilty to conspiracy. [00:08:29] Speaker 04: That's why the proceeds were paid. [00:08:31] Speaker 04: We do agree with the government and what it says in the information and in its decision document that there were IEPA violations here. [00:08:38] Speaker 04: But the funds were paid for a conspiracy that was charged and pled guilty to. [00:08:44] Speaker 00: So normally in criminal conspiracy cases, [00:08:48] Speaker 00: where the government has demonstrated an agreement, et cetera. [00:08:55] Speaker 00: The defendant remains a part of the conspiracy until he, she, or it takes some action to withdraw. [00:09:08] Speaker 00: So here the statute, I thought, may anticipate that when it defines who is a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:09:19] Speaker 00: when it says, refers to repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism. [00:09:28] Speaker 00: So in regard to Judge Rao's question, is part of the answer that it could be both, that it could be a violation of IEPA, but then these other actions supportive, however you want to describe them, [00:09:44] Speaker 00: fall within the definition that the statute provides as to who is a state sponsor. [00:09:50] Speaker 00: And so you don't need to take an either or approach. [00:09:55] Speaker 00: I mean, that is the question, whether the statute forces you to take that approach. [00:10:01] Speaker 04: I think I agree, Your Honor, that we don't need to take an either or approach. [00:10:05] Speaker 04: There were IEPA violations here. [00:10:07] Speaker 04: They weren't charged. [00:10:08] Speaker 04: There were also the conspiracy. [00:10:10] Speaker 04: But I don't think that, you know, defining who's a state sponsor of terrorism, that is a separate decision that Congress has described in a certain way. [00:10:17] Speaker 04: And then in this funding provision, it said the question is, do the proceeds arise from doing business with or acting on behalf of or the actions of? [00:10:25] Speaker 04: a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:10:26] Speaker 04: And so, Your Honor, we think, you know, we go back to that core definition. [00:10:29] Speaker 04: Is there any causal connection? [00:10:31] Speaker 04: Is it an ingredient? [00:10:32] Speaker 04: And we have that here. [00:10:33] Speaker 04: It's at the beginning. [00:10:34] Speaker 04: It's at the end when these charges were brought. [00:10:37] Speaker 04: North Korea was a state sponsor of terrorism when the proceeds were paid. [00:10:40] Speaker 05: Okay, maybe we should go back to the statutory question about whether state sponsor of terrorism applies [00:10:49] Speaker 05: You know, what does that apply to? [00:10:50] Speaker 05: Does it apply to related criminal conspiracy scheme or other federal offense? [00:10:56] Speaker 05: Does it apply to IEPA, TWE, and the related conspiracy scheme or other federal offense? [00:11:03] Speaker 05: Well, Your Honor, our, you know, your position is that it only applies to other federal offense. [00:11:08] Speaker 05: I think that is a very unnatural reading of the statute, I will just say. [00:11:12] Speaker 05: So I'm not sure how grammatically [00:11:16] Speaker 05: we could apply state sponsor of terrorism only to other federal offense. [00:11:23] Speaker 04: Well, Your Honor, it follows other federal offense with no comma. [00:11:26] Speaker 04: So the normal rules of grammar is that when you have a qualifying phrase that follows a noun with no comma, it modifies that noun and only that noun. [00:11:34] Speaker 04: That's the last antecedent canon. [00:11:36] Speaker 04: That's the typical rule. [00:11:37] Speaker 05: It doesn't make a lot of sense with or any related criminal conspiracy scheme. [00:11:42] Speaker 05: or other federal offense arising from seems to be a part of this whole last clause. [00:11:50] Speaker 04: Well, Your Honor, first I want to point out that that's not the government's argument. [00:11:53] Speaker 04: The government's arguing that you have to take that last phrase and take it the whole way back through this 94-word tradition. [00:11:58] Speaker 04: Put aside the government. [00:11:58] Speaker 05: I'm trying to figure out the best meaning of the statute, which is what we have to do. [00:12:02] Speaker 05: Irrespective of what the parties argue, we need to figure out what Congress did with the best interpretation of the statute. [00:12:09] Speaker 04: So, Your Honor, but still the last anti-senate rule is the typical rule. [00:12:13] Speaker 04: You know, this court has said that that is the normal reading of something. [00:12:16] Speaker 04: You just apply it to the thing before. [00:12:18] Speaker 04: Congress could so easily have put a comma between federal offense and arising from. [00:12:22] Speaker 04: There are 12 commas in this provision. [00:12:24] Speaker 04: It didn't choose to put one there. [00:12:25] Speaker 04: We don't think this is the kind of case where the court's applied the serious qualifier canon. [00:12:30] Speaker 04: There, it's applied it to short phrases, two words, like in Facebook, store or possess. [00:12:36] Speaker 04: And I know the government really doesn't try to draw parallels to Facebook in its brief here, even though the district court primarily relied on it. [00:12:44] Speaker 04: Or it applies it where there are special reasons to quote one of the cases, such as the purpose. [00:12:49] Speaker 04: And here, the purpose of the statute is undermined by the government's very narrow interpretation. [00:12:54] Speaker 05: Right. [00:12:54] Speaker 05: Well, I mean. [00:12:56] Speaker 05: You know, this is a provision to channel money. [00:12:59] Speaker 05: So we have to just figure out, you know, what money is being channeled. [00:13:03] Speaker 05: But so, okay, just assume for a minute that I think state sponsor of terrorism applies to the whole last clause related to criminal conspiracy scheme or other federal offense, but not to the IEPA and TUE violations. [00:13:18] Speaker 04: So then, Your Honor, your prior question becomes more important because one way to look at this case is we've actually very this is why I think this is important. [00:13:25] Speaker 04: Sorry, my apologies, Your Honor, if I didn't follow that entirely before. [00:13:28] Speaker 04: So the government is clear in the decision. [00:13:31] Speaker 04: It keeps saying violations of IEPA, even though what it charged is conspiracy. [00:13:35] Speaker 04: So there's no question there are IEPA violations here. [00:13:38] Speaker 05: IEPA violations, my question is they've charged an IEPA conspiracy under the IEPA statute. [00:13:45] Speaker 05: They haven't used the general federal conspiracy statute. [00:13:49] Speaker 05: They've used the IEPA conspiracy provision 1705. [00:13:53] Speaker 05: That's correct. [00:13:54] Speaker 05: In that instance, is an IEPA conspiracy violation a violation of IEPA? [00:14:00] Speaker 05: It is, Your Honor. [00:14:00] Speaker 05: Or is it a violation of a related conspiracy? [00:14:06] Speaker 04: Violating, conspiring to violate IEPA is itself an IEPA violation. [00:14:11] Speaker 04: We had agreed with the government that we were in related conspiracy land because this is a conspiracy. [00:14:16] Speaker 04: It's related to an IEPA violation and it was charged as a conspiracy. [00:14:20] Speaker 04: I think you can also look at this as a set of straight up IEPA violations in addition to a conspiracy. [00:14:25] Speaker 05: Even if the parties agree on how to characterize it, it seems to me that what was charged and what was agreed to is a legal question. [00:14:32] Speaker 05: and not necessarily one the parties can stipulate to. [00:14:37] Speaker 04: I agree with that, Your Honor. [00:14:38] Speaker 04: We thought it was important that the information charged conspiracy, and the conspiracy here happened when North Korea was a state sponsor of terrorism, but there were IEPA violations as well, that information makes that clear. [00:14:53] Speaker 02: Go ahead. [00:14:54] Speaker 02: I agree that we could not issue a definitive binding holding that misinterprets a statute. [00:15:02] Speaker 02: We shouldn't do that when we know it's a misinterpretation of a statute. [00:15:06] Speaker 02: But I think it's the burden of the appellant to make a winning argument. [00:15:14] Speaker 02: If the appellant doesn't make a winning argument, [00:15:17] Speaker 02: that should be a firm of the district court. [00:15:21] Speaker 02: We could say it's an affirm because a potentially winning argument was forfeited in the briefing, and that would leave the possibility of a future litigant to persuade a court to interpret the statute the way that maybe we think the statute should be interpreted. [00:15:37] Speaker 02: But I'm not sure that we have a [00:15:44] Speaker 02: It's arguable whether we even can, but I definitely don't think we have a duty to make a winning argument for an appellant that the appellant didn't make. [00:15:53] Speaker 02: By the way, you might still win on the, it's because it started in 2007, everything after that counts. [00:15:59] Speaker 02: So you might still win, but on the, the, [00:16:04] Speaker 02: dialogue you were having with Judge Rowland, tell me, this is your opportunity to tell me why I'm wrong that if the appellant hasn't made an argument, we don't have a duty to make that argument for you. [00:16:16] Speaker 04: Your Honor, we think the better argument and the argument we made in our brief is that that last phrase arising from only modifies other federal offense. [00:16:24] Speaker 04: That's the thing right before it [00:16:25] Speaker 04: This court recently said in US versus little, the normal reading is you just apply it to the thing before it. [00:16:30] Speaker 04: We very strenuously argued this is not a case for the exception. [00:16:35] Speaker 04: Where the court makes an exception, it's usually because to not do so would be contrary to Congress's purpose. [00:16:40] Speaker 04: We have here the amici who have come in and told the court what their purpose was, and it was to identify multiple broad streams of funding. [00:16:46] Speaker 04: The government's argument does the opposite. [00:16:48] Speaker 04: It narrows the streams of funding to a trickle here. [00:16:52] Speaker 04: We think that phrase just modifies other federal offense. [00:16:56] Speaker 04: I recognize this court could draw a different line in the statute. [00:17:01] Speaker 04: And I think if the court does so, it can articulate that. [00:17:04] Speaker 04: And we have laid out all the possibilities in the briefing here. [00:17:07] Speaker 04: And I think the court can reach the conclusion it feels appropriate. [00:17:10] Speaker 04: But we do think just apply the normal last antecedent rule, and it goes to other federal offense. [00:17:15] Speaker 04: And that's what the drafters of this provision have told the court they were trying to do. [00:17:22] Speaker 04: And, Your Honor, I know that I'm over my time here, so I just want to briefly say, you know, an important thing is I think that the fact that the government has to twist itself into a pretzel to explain how it divided up the proceeds here, that it used this, you know, took the bank transactions, came up with this proxy approach suggested by an accountant where they admitted themselves, and this is at Joint Appendix 397 to 98, we would not be able to break down to the SST time period. [00:17:49] Speaker 04: I think that's really strong evidence that they're not doing what Congress intended here. [00:17:52] Speaker 04: This was supposed to be a yes, no, arising from is a very broad phrase. [00:17:57] Speaker 04: And for those reasons, Your Honor, we would ask that the court reverse and correct the misinterpretation and misapplication of the statute for the sake not just of these plaintiffs, but the 20,000 terrorism victims who are awaiting recovery of their judgments. [00:18:09] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:18:11] Speaker 05: Give you some time. [00:18:12] Speaker 05: Thank you. [00:18:23] Speaker 01: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:18:24] Speaker 01: I'm Josh Koppel for the Department of Justice. [00:18:26] Speaker 01: May it please the court. [00:18:28] Speaker 01: Congress created the VSST fund to compensate American victims of state-sponsored terrorism. [00:18:34] Speaker 01: And it made the logical choice to fund that program with the penalties and forfeitures paid to the United States for certain specified offenses, if and only if those offenses involved state sponsors of terrorism. [00:18:48] Speaker 01: This is a case in which the series qualifier canon clearly applies. [00:18:54] Speaker 01: Starting with the text, we have a list of five offenses, AIPA, TWA, and related conspiracies, schemes, and other federal offenses, followed by a modifying clause. [00:19:05] Speaker 01: And the Supreme Court has said that where the modifying clause is just as applicable to all of the preceding items in a list as to the last, [00:19:13] Speaker 01: The natural construction of the language demands applying the Dequalifying Clause to all the preceding items. [00:19:22] Speaker 05: Just looking at the way this provision is punctuated and the way the last clause begins with or any related criminal conspiracy, it seems very unnatural to read the state sponsor of terrorism requirement as going back to the AIPA and TWA violations. [00:19:41] Speaker 01: I think that it's no more unnatural than was the case in Puerto Rico Railway, for example. [00:19:46] Speaker 01: In that case, the court was interpreting a statute that similarly had multiple clauses and sub clauses. [00:19:51] Speaker 01: Nonetheless, the Supreme Court applied the series qualifier canon. [00:19:54] Speaker 01: Here, too, there's no reason to think certainly the qualifier clause could be applied to IEPA violations. [00:20:01] Speaker 01: just as easily as to related conspiracies or related other federal offenses and there's no reason no discernible uh reason consistent with the purpose of the statute to think that congress would have wanted to differentiate between IEPA offenses and related conspiracies and IEPA related other federal offenses such that only some of those offenses have to have a connection to state sponsors of terrorism but other [00:20:24] Speaker 05: There's no reason to believe. [00:20:25] Speaker 05: I mean, that's not, I mean, we're trying to figure out what Congress actually said and did. [00:20:30] Speaker 05: I mean, who knows why they make any decision. [00:20:33] Speaker 05: This is just like a channeling provision, right? [00:20:36] Speaker 05: Maybe they wanted all of the IEPs to go into this fund. [00:20:41] Speaker 05: I don't know why we would. [00:20:42] Speaker 05: I mean, are you suggesting it would be absurd for all the AEPA funds to go into this, like all the AEPA proceeds? [00:20:49] Speaker 01: Well, the Supreme Court used a similar reasoning. [00:20:51] Speaker 01: It said there was no reason consistent with any discernible purpose of the statute in United States versus Bass. [00:20:58] Speaker 01: And that was a reason to use this series qualifier. [00:21:01] Speaker 05: It could be that they want money to go into this fund for victims of state-sponsored terrorism. [00:21:06] Speaker 01: Sure, there's absolutely a story to tell about why Congress might want the penalties from all of these offenses to go to the VST fund, regardless of whether they involve a state-sponsored terrorism. [00:21:16] Speaker 01: But what there's no explanation for is why Congress would say, if it's an IEPA-related other federal offense, it has to have a connection to state-sponsored terrorism. [00:21:25] Speaker 01: But if it's an IEPA-related scheme, it does not. [00:21:27] Speaker 01: And it is unworkable, because there's no way to differentiate it. [00:21:30] Speaker 05: Well, I think there's some question about absurdity. [00:21:34] Speaker 05: I mean, one possibility could be that IEPA and TWA violations, like direct violations of those provisions, involve bad state actors. [00:21:44] Speaker 05: And maybe a related criminal conspiracy scheme or other federal offense has to be more closely tied to state sponsor of terrorism. [00:21:51] Speaker 05: I mean, I don't know. [00:21:52] Speaker 05: It could be something in the nature of IEPA and TWA versus sort of the very broad catch all has to involve a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:22:02] Speaker 01: So, yeah, so I've got two responses. [00:22:04] Speaker 01: The first is the plaintiffs want to differentiate also other federal offenses from schemes, and there's no way to even find the best media. [00:22:10] Speaker 01: Yeah, there's no way to even know what is an other federal offense and what is a scheme because scheme doesn't have a concrete definition. [00:22:16] Speaker 01: But furthermore, Congress would not have thought that there's any closer connection to state sponsors of terrorism between IPA violations and IPA related conspiracies. [00:22:26] Speaker 01: Just to give an example, there are sanctions under IPA against Russia. [00:22:30] Speaker 01: Russia is not designated state sponsor of terrorism. [00:22:32] Speaker 01: There are tariffs imposed on Canada, Mexico, China due to the flow of opioids across the border. [00:22:38] Speaker 01: Those tariffs are imposed under the president's authority pursuant to AIIPA. [00:22:41] Speaker 00: But let's not get into that argument. [00:22:43] Speaker 00: All right, that's a completely different statutory scheme. [00:22:45] Speaker 00: Well, according to- What we're trying to focus on here is the precise language. [00:22:51] Speaker 00: We have the amici brief that says, here's what we intended. [00:22:56] Speaker 00: And for 10 years, Congress had been trying to figure out [00:22:59] Speaker 00: how to provide some relief, and it came up with this scheme, all right? [00:23:05] Speaker 00: So Judge Rao has asked a question. [00:23:08] Speaker 00: it seems to me that has to be answered in the context of this statute and its purpose. [00:23:15] Speaker 00: And you haven't denied that this is some accountant's theory, which is very nice, but the argument is made that Congress never indicated in any way that it intended the type of formula that the government is applying. [00:23:31] Speaker 00: So as I understand, [00:23:32] Speaker 00: and I'm putting words into my colleague's mouth. [00:23:35] Speaker 00: The judge is asking, but wait a minute, there is this listing and why shouldn't we think of the listing as sort of independent statements and then this catch all about and any related? [00:23:50] Speaker 00: And so the response is, well, this arising under covers everything. [00:23:56] Speaker 00: So can you focus on that and not some tariff theory here? [00:24:01] Speaker 01: I want to be clear, because under plaintiff's theory, if someone smuggles goods across the Canadian border without paying the tariffs, that is a violation of a regulation issued under IEPA. [00:24:14] Speaker 01: And if that property is forfeited, it would be put in the VSST fund. [00:24:19] Speaker 00: But if the government- But this is in the context of an IEPA conspiracy. [00:24:25] Speaker 00: And there's no argument that conspiracy as a cruel matter is to be viewed differently here in the IEPA context than in [00:24:36] Speaker 00: the usual context that we deal with the conspiracy. [00:24:40] Speaker 01: So similarly, if someone were charged with conspiring to smuggle goods across the border, for example, again, the same question would arise. [00:24:49] Speaker 01: And there's no reason to think that Congress would have wanted to differentiate between an individual IEBA violation and a conspiracy to violate IEBA. [00:24:58] Speaker 01: And I think this does get to the question that Judge Rao was asking of opposing counsel. [00:25:03] Speaker 01: There's no reason to think that Congress would have wanted to differentiate such that if someone is charged with an individual AIPA violation, it does not need a connection to state-sponsored terrorism. [00:25:13] Speaker 01: But if someone is charged with a conspiracy to commit AIPA, to violate AIPA, that it does need a state-sponsored of terrorism connection. [00:25:21] Speaker 05: Let me ask you the question I also asked your colleague on the other side, which is, is the AIPA conspiracy here? [00:25:29] Speaker 05: A violation of IEPA, the first part of the statute, the first clause, arguably, or is it part of a related criminal conspiracy? [00:25:38] Speaker 01: I think it is a related conspiracy. [00:25:40] Speaker 01: I think that it isn't. [00:25:41] Speaker 05: Why? [00:25:42] Speaker 01: I think that when Congress spoke to an AIPA-related conspiracy, it was addressing exactly this, a conspiracy to violate AIPA. [00:25:52] Speaker 05: It's not related conspiracy. [00:25:54] Speaker 05: It's not related conspiracy. [00:25:56] Speaker 05: It is an AIPA conspiracy. [00:25:58] Speaker 05: There could be related conspiracies under, arguably, the bank fraud conspiracy is related to the AIPA. [00:26:04] Speaker 05: There's a relationship. [00:26:06] Speaker 05: But here the government charged under 50, whatever, 1705, which is the specific IEPA conspiracy. [00:26:15] Speaker 05: Why isn't that a violation of IEPA under the first clause? [00:26:19] Speaker 05: Which obviously matters if, for instance, I mean, assuming I think that state sponsor of terrorism doesn't apply to that. [00:26:25] Speaker 01: Yeah, I think that. [00:26:28] Speaker 01: I think it's a tough question. [00:26:30] Speaker 01: I think that the statute is certainly not clear on this point. [00:26:34] Speaker 05: I do think that- Well, I'm not asking about the statute. [00:26:36] Speaker 05: I'm asking about what was charged here and how it matches up to the statute. [00:26:41] Speaker 01: Yeah. [00:26:41] Speaker 01: What was charged was certainly a conspiracy under the [00:26:44] Speaker 01: IEPA statute itself, as Your Honor pointed out. [00:26:47] Speaker 01: The question is how that matches up to the statute. [00:26:49] Speaker 01: And I think that's the Congress was not clear on that point, whether that is an IEPA-related conspiracy or an IEPA violation itself. [00:26:56] Speaker 01: But I think that the fact that Congress was not clear just highlights the fact that Congress did not think that there would be this distinction between an IEPA-related conspiracy and an IEPA violation. [00:27:09] Speaker 01: So I think that [00:27:14] Speaker 01: I think the better reading problem is that this does fall within the conspiracy framework. [00:27:18] Speaker 01: And so all this court needs to do then in order to affirm the decision below rule for the government is to hold that the arising from state sponsor of terrorism clause applies at least to related conspiracies, schemes, and other federal offenses. [00:27:32] Speaker 01: And the court then wouldn't need to address whether it also applies to IEPA violations and TRIA violations. [00:27:39] Speaker 01: But in any event, we do think that the series qualifier canon [00:27:42] Speaker 05: is, uh, through the side that applies to those things. [00:27:46] Speaker 05: And also that what was led to here is a related conspiracy, not an IEPA violation. [00:27:54] Speaker 01: That's right. [00:27:55] Speaker 05: So, I mean, that would also be, that's right. [00:27:58] Speaker 05: If the court determine that [00:28:00] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:28:01] Speaker 01: Of course, if the court thinks that it's easier, the court could also simply say the modifying clause applies to each of the five preceding offenses. [00:28:09] Speaker 01: And in that case, it doesn't matter whether what was charged to was an IEPA violation or an IEPA-related conspiracy. [00:28:16] Speaker 02: So that seems like I know that's what your brief says is the best way to interpret it. [00:28:22] Speaker 02: I think I heard Judge Rada suggest that she's skeptical of that. [00:28:27] Speaker 02: I'm skeptical of it too. [00:28:30] Speaker 02: I haven't diagrammed sentences since grade school, but I took a crack at this one. [00:28:39] Speaker 02: Do you have the statute in front of you? [00:28:43] Speaker 05: I do. [00:28:43] Speaker 05: I might be too young to remember sentence diagramming. [00:28:46] Speaker 05: I don't think they do that anymore in school. [00:28:47] Speaker 01: They don't. [00:28:49] Speaker 01: But I'm happy to try. [00:28:50] Speaker 01: I learned a lot in preparing for this case about sentence. [00:28:56] Speaker 02: So I'm at the first arising from phrase. [00:29:01] Speaker 02: As a criminal penalty or fine arising from. [00:29:05] Speaker 02: So arising from then requires an object or more than one object. [00:29:13] Speaker 02: Arising from what? [00:29:16] Speaker 02: What do you think is the object or objects? [00:29:22] Speaker 02: that answer the question arising from what? [00:29:28] Speaker 01: I think a violation or any related conspiracy scheme, other federal offense. [00:29:37] Speaker 02: I think the exact same thing, but I'm not sure this is good for your argument. [00:29:42] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:29:43] Speaker 02: Because I think that helps me realize that [00:29:49] Speaker 02: the final arising from language follows the second of the two objects. [00:29:59] Speaker 02: And so therefore, or the second fall, I guess you would say it follows the third, the second, third, and fourth objects. [00:30:08] Speaker 02: And so likely modifies the second, third, and fourth objects and not [00:30:15] Speaker 02: the violation of Aeepa or Twia object. [00:30:21] Speaker 02: And that is especially, I think, made clear from the comma that follows the first object. [00:30:27] Speaker 02: So you've got arising from object one, comma, [00:30:32] Speaker 02: or object two, and then without a comma at the end of object two, which is really objects two, three, and four, you've got that final arising from language. [00:30:42] Speaker 02: Do you see why I think it can't go back to Aipa and Tuya? [00:30:49] Speaker 01: I do, and I don't think, so it doesn't matter that the qualifying clause appears at the end of the sentence rather than the beginning. [00:30:58] Speaker 01: You can have a post-positive modifier that applies to each of the preceding items in the list. [00:31:03] Speaker 01: Just like you can have a pre-positive modifier that applies to each of the following items in a list. [00:31:09] Speaker 01: So the second point that you made was this question about the comma. [00:31:13] Speaker 01: I agree. [00:31:14] Speaker 01: The answer would be easy if there were an additional comma before the second arising from after other federal offense. [00:31:22] Speaker 01: It would be easy if there were a comma. [00:31:24] Speaker 01: But the absence of a comma, the Supreme Court has said in United States versus Bass, does not signal anything because grammarians disagree about whether or the grammarians agree, actually, that the inclusion of a comma is discretionary. [00:31:38] Speaker 02: So I think sometimes a comma is not just positive. [00:31:43] Speaker 02: Sometimes it is. [00:31:43] Speaker 02: I think there's an old John Marshall piracy opinion where he says it's either a capital offense or not a capital offense, depending on whether there's a comma. [00:31:52] Speaker 02: And so the presence of a comma is the difference between life and death. [00:31:56] Speaker 02: But here I wasn't actually asking about the lack of a comma that you were describing. [00:31:59] Speaker 02: I was emphasizing the presence of the comma. [00:32:02] Speaker 02: right after Tuya. [00:32:04] Speaker 02: So you've got the first arising from, and then you've got a violation, that's an object, and then a comma following that, which then leads to [00:32:16] Speaker 02: conspiracy scheme, other federal offense. [00:32:19] Speaker 02: It's that second grouping after the comma that is there that is modified by the final arising from grace. [00:32:25] Speaker 01: So I'd point you to Puerto Rico versus Moore. [00:32:28] Speaker 01: And maybe you don't have the statutory text that was involved in that case before you. [00:32:34] Speaker 01: But I'll read it. [00:32:35] Speaker 01: It provided for jurisdiction of the district court of all controversies where all of the parties on either side of the controversy are citizens or subjects of a foreign state or state's comma [00:32:46] Speaker 01: or citizens of a state territory or district of the United States, no comma, not domiciled in Puerto Rico. [00:32:59] Speaker 01: So it was the same. [00:33:00] Speaker 01: It was basically foreign citizens, comma, or US citizens, no comma, not domiciled in Puerto Rico. [00:33:07] Speaker 01: And the Supreme Court held that not domiciled in Puerto Rico applied both to the US citizens and the foreign citizens. [00:33:13] Speaker 01: It's the exact same structure here. [00:33:14] Speaker 02: I do remember that case. [00:33:16] Speaker 02: I did not remember the exact wording as you were reading it, but I looked at it. [00:33:21] Speaker 02: I think it's helpful to you. [00:33:22] Speaker 02: I'm not sure it's smoking gun evidence that you win, but I do think that it's helpful to you. [00:33:26] Speaker 02: If it's okay, I was going to switch to the second argument that the appellants make. [00:33:31] Speaker 01: If I can just really briefly just make one point before we do that. [00:33:35] Speaker 01: I think that [00:33:36] Speaker 01: You don't have to only look at the text here. [00:33:38] Speaker 01: There are numerous other tools of statutory interpretation, and I do think they all point in the favor of the government here. [00:33:43] Speaker 01: So, for example, the award to informers who report who identify property held in the United States by state sponsors of terrorism, they get an award if they identify property held by another sanctioned state. [00:33:57] Speaker 01: There's no award. [00:33:58] Speaker 01: I think that's an indication. [00:34:00] Speaker 01: There's also congressional ratification here. [00:34:01] Speaker 01: Congress specifically amended this funding provision after it knew the Department of Justice's longstanding interpretation, and it didn't reject that interpretation. [00:34:10] Speaker 05: Can I just ask you a practical question just about this, which is what is the universe of AIPA funds that would go into this if there had to be no connection to state-sponsored terrorism? [00:34:25] Speaker 01: Very large. [00:34:26] Speaker 01: I think on the order of billions of dollars. [00:34:28] Speaker 05: And was that true at the time the statute was enacted as well as today? [00:34:32] Speaker 05: Or is it that the use of IEPA has expanded so now includes a lot more proceeds? [00:34:37] Speaker 05: I'm just asking as a practical matter why the government might care about this in terms of just sort of dollars and cents in terms of where the money gets channeled. [00:34:47] Speaker 01: I think that it always was. [00:34:49] Speaker 01: I think that there have [00:34:51] Speaker 01: I don't know exactly. [00:34:54] Speaker 05: Yeah, but it was a large pool of money at the time. [00:34:56] Speaker 01: This was it was, you know, sanctions on Russia. [00:34:58] Speaker 01: There have been longstanding sanctions. [00:35:00] Speaker 01: I think Ethiopia due to humanitarian violations, Nicaragua. [00:35:04] Speaker 01: Similarly, none of those countries, Burma, none of those countries have ever been designated state sponsors of terrorism. [00:35:09] Speaker 01: So there was always a large category of violations. [00:35:13] Speaker 05: Okay, and so it's possible Congress either wanted a large category of money to go into this fund or it didn't, but that category has been, it's been a large amount of money. [00:35:22] Speaker 01: It is large, yes. [00:35:24] Speaker 01: But again, even if Congress intended this large amount of money to go into the fund, that wouldn't jive then with what Congress did later in saying, [00:35:34] Speaker 01: AIPA-related other federal offenses have to have a connection to state sponsors of terrorism. [00:35:39] Speaker 01: So it's not about a question. [00:35:41] Speaker 05: Why do you think that's so strange? [00:35:44] Speaker 05: Because the related category is so broad. [00:35:48] Speaker 05: Whereas AIPA and TUIA are sort of defined, this large catch-all [00:35:54] Speaker 05: It's possible. [00:35:55] Speaker 05: I'm just speculating that state sponsor of terrorism was designed to cabin this very, you know, it could be very capacious category when they use the word scheme related. [00:36:05] Speaker 05: And so, so the last category has to have a nexus to state sponsor of terrorism, but not these other statues, which they kind of have a sense of what's included there. [00:36:15] Speaker 01: I'm not sure it is because the related phrase does limit what comes later. [00:36:22] Speaker 01: Certainly these are IEPA related other federal offenses. [00:36:25] Speaker 01: I think what Congress was trying to avoid here was a situation like that here where the defendant is charged with bank fraud because they concealed the transactions so that the banks, the intermediary banks didn't know they were doing business with a sanctioned state. [00:36:41] Speaker 01: So even if there had been no IEPA charge here, [00:36:44] Speaker 01: just a bank fraud charge, Congress didn't want that money to escape this provision, right? [00:36:49] Speaker 01: So that's kind of that I related other federal offense. [00:36:53] Speaker 01: But all along, Congress only envisioned that any of these penalties would only be deposited in the VST fund if they involved a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:37:03] Speaker 02: I do want to address. [00:37:04] Speaker 02: But now I have followed up. [00:37:08] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:37:08] Speaker 02: My understanding, as I studied this case, was that taking the appellants argument would mean that criminal penalties and fines arising from any IEPA violation would go into this fund. [00:37:24] Speaker 02: But not that any money raised from IEPA rules would go into this fund, because I thought that if IEPA [00:37:33] Speaker 02: is used to impose tariff and that tariff then leads to raising money from the tariffs from trade across borders, I wouldn't have thought that that money is the product of a criminal penalty of fine. [00:37:47] Speaker 01: You're certainly right. [00:37:47] Speaker 01: The point that I was making earlier was that if someone is caught smuggling goods across the Canadian border and that property is forfeited under plaintiff's interpretation, [00:37:56] Speaker 01: That's a forfeiture that results from a violation of a regulation issued under IEPA and that would be depositing the VST fund even though obviously smuggling goods across the border from Canada has no connection to state sponsors of tariffs. [00:38:08] Speaker 02: Okay, I got that and I'm grateful for the confirmation on that. [00:38:12] Speaker 02: On their second argument which is that if [00:38:16] Speaker 02: a conspiracy begins while the country is a state sponsor of terrorism, then for however long the conspiracy lasts, the money goes into this fund, even if that country is dropped as a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:38:29] Speaker 02: I think there's force to that argument here. [00:38:31] Speaker 02: And one analogy that I thought of is if one section of a stadium starts a wave at a sports game, I think [00:38:45] Speaker 02: The rest of the stadium's continuation of that wave could be said to arise from section one's creation of the wave, even though it does take independent actions in sections two, three, four, five, six for that wave to continue as long as it did. [00:39:01] Speaker 02: I think here, a conspiracy that began when North Korea was a state sponsor of terrorism, as long as it's that same conspiracy that's continuing, it seems like it's the wave that's continuing and arose from 2007. [00:39:15] Speaker 01: So I think that the distinction between the wave and the North Korean sanctions, I think that you do have to think about the temporal element. [00:39:26] Speaker 01: And a violation or transactions that occur at a time that North Korea was not a designated state sponsor of terrorism just don't arise from doing business with a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:39:36] Speaker 01: At the time those transactions were made, the business was done with a sanctioned state, but not a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:39:43] Speaker 02: Do you agree that they originate from a conspiracy that began with the state sponsor of terrorism? [00:39:54] Speaker 01: I don't think my answer would change either way. [00:39:59] Speaker 01: Certainly the transactions at the time did not involve a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:40:04] Speaker 01: If British American tobacco or say a defendant had engaged in five transactions with a sanctioned state, and after the first two, the state was designated a state sponsor of terrorism, if this is charged as five independent IEPA violations, [00:40:22] Speaker 01: Penalties from the first two violations would not go to the VSSD fund. [00:40:27] Speaker 01: They don't involve a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:40:29] Speaker 01: Penalties from the last three would go to the VSSD fund. [00:40:33] Speaker 01: There's no reason to think that the rules should be any different if the defendant is charged instead with conspiracy to violate IEI. [00:40:40] Speaker 02: No, I mean, it's not at all unusual for the decision about [00:40:47] Speaker 02: charging to have quite an effect. [00:40:49] Speaker 02: I mean, we just had a criminal appeal where they charged one crime and they probably could have charged two, three, four, five crimes that would have definitely increased the statutory maximum. [00:41:00] Speaker 02: Here, you're right. [00:41:01] Speaker 02: I mean, you could charge your hypothetical as five crimes, you could charge it as one and whether you do or don't is going to have an effect in many ways and it may have an effect on whether the money goes into the fund or not. [00:41:12] Speaker 01: It would certainly have an effect on the government's burden of proof in the criminal charge. [00:41:18] Speaker 01: There are reasons that a prosecutor might want to charge something one way versus another. [00:41:22] Speaker 01: Conspiracy to violate IEPA, IEPA, conspiracy to commit bank fraud. [00:41:27] Speaker 01: But there's no reason to think that Congress would have wanted to tie funding of the VST fund [00:41:31] Speaker 01: to the prosecutor's decision, which is made for a completely different purpose, right? [00:41:36] Speaker 01: And nor should the prosecutor be thinking, well, do I want this money to go to the VST fund or do I want it to go to the crime victims fund to help these other victims when he makes that charging decision? [00:41:47] Speaker 02: Let me ask, that's fair enough. [00:41:51] Speaker 02: Let me ask you, [00:41:53] Speaker 02: What is a clearer way that you could have written this statute to support your interpretation about the temporal issues? [00:42:05] Speaker 02: I will qualify this by saying, I don't ascribe to the, if it could have been written clearer, then it doesn't mean the other thing, Hannon, but it can be just a helpful thought exercise. [00:42:17] Speaker 01: Yeah, I think it's, [00:42:19] Speaker 01: somewhat difficult because, you know, you're going to end up with lots of factual, different factual situations. [00:42:26] Speaker 01: So I think it's difficult to frame the statute in terms of [00:42:32] Speaker 01: to draft a clearer statute, I think that maybe Congress could have put in something about individual transactions. [00:42:41] Speaker 01: But again, I don't want to speculate about how that might play out differently in different factual situations. [00:42:49] Speaker 01: So I think it's difficult. [00:42:50] Speaker 02: I think it's a candid answer to my question. [00:42:54] Speaker 02: I think it's revealing, though. [00:42:58] Speaker 02: It's not good for you. [00:43:00] Speaker 02: The the absence of the word transactions in the actual test is part of what's giving me a lot of trouble with with your argument. [00:43:10] Speaker 02: I just I don't think of arising from being kind of [00:43:16] Speaker 02: a phrase that captures a distinction between the transactions that follow the arising. [00:43:25] Speaker 01: Well, I want to focus on what actually follows the words arising from. [00:43:28] Speaker 01: So they're arising from the actions of or doing business with or acting on behalf of a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:43:35] Speaker 01: And so there is a connection to the business that is done, the acting on behalf of, right? [00:43:39] Speaker 01: When does that business happen? [00:43:41] Speaker 01: It happens when you engage in the transaction. [00:43:43] Speaker 01: acting on behalf, right? [00:43:44] Speaker 01: Similarly. [00:43:45] Speaker 01: So I think that there is a statutory indication to what Congress was focusing on was not just kind of involving a state sponsor of terrorism or touching in any way, but rather arising from doing business with, you know, when that transaction is done. [00:44:01] Speaker 01: And when British American tobacco [00:44:05] Speaker 01: participated in this conspiracy in 2009, so this is after the de-designation of North Korea. [00:44:11] Speaker 01: It was not then doing business with a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:44:15] Speaker 01: And so we would submit that in that case, the penalties allocable to that portion of the offense should not be deposited in the VSST fund. [00:44:26] Speaker 01: Instead, they should be deposited in the Crime Victims Fund, where they are used to support victims of other crimes not involving state-sponsored terrorism. [00:44:37] Speaker 01: We ask that the court affirm the decision below. [00:44:41] Speaker 05: Thank you. [00:44:45] Speaker 04: Thank you, Your Honors. [00:44:48] Speaker 04: First, just to clarify what our arguments were, I did want to point the court back to page two of our opening brief, where we say that that proceeds arise from IEPA violations and related criminal conspiracies. [00:44:59] Speaker 04: So I think it's important here that, Your Honor, the doing business with, that my friend was just talking about, the doing business with North Korea was at the front end. [00:45:08] Speaker 04: Setting up this framework, these agreements, that all happened at the front end. [00:45:13] Speaker 04: The individual transactions that followed, some of them may have involved North Korean entities, some may not have. [00:45:18] Speaker 04: The laundering, it's not the transactions. [00:45:20] Speaker 04: Congress could have used violative acts, the phrase you see throughout the decision memo and in the government's internal correspondence. [00:45:27] Speaker 04: It did not do that here. [00:45:29] Speaker 04: I also wanted to touch on Puerto Rico Railway, this case from 1920. [00:45:33] Speaker 04: And old certainly doesn't mean it's bad. [00:45:35] Speaker 04: But I think what's really important there, Your Honor, is that the court said there are special reasons for applying the series qualifier canon. [00:45:42] Speaker 04: And the special reasons were Congress's purpose. [00:45:44] Speaker 04: It wanted to dial back the jurisdiction of the Puerto Rico District Court. [00:45:48] Speaker 04: Here, the special purpose Congress had in enacting the act was to find multiple broad streams of funding. [00:45:55] Speaker 04: Their interpretation undermines that special purpose. [00:45:58] Speaker 04: Second, Your Honor, this is a funding provision, as Judge Rao said. [00:46:01] Speaker 04: There's nothing absurd about drawing funds from bad state actors that may or may not be state sponsors of terrorism to fund the Victims Fund, to fund victims of state-sponsored terrorism. [00:46:16] Speaker 04: That's what Congress thought it was doing. [00:46:17] Speaker 04: And we know that from, for example, the Congressional Budget Office reports on the Burma bills, the China bill, where they said sanctioning these countries is going to add to the Victims Fund. [00:46:28] Speaker 04: That wouldn't be true under the government's interpretation. [00:46:32] Speaker 05: Briefly address the government's argument that this is a longstanding interpretation and that Congress has effectively ratified it by not changing it over time. [00:46:42] Speaker 04: Your Honor, there's a lot of case law from this circuit in the Supreme Court saying that ratifications, arguments are always, to put it colloquially, weak sauce. [00:46:50] Speaker 04: But even setting that aside, nobody knew what they were doing here. [00:46:53] Speaker 04: There's no indication that Congress had any idea how funds were being divided from cases. [00:46:58] Speaker 04: Those decision memorandums are not published. [00:47:01] Speaker 04: It was only last year in 2024 that the victims fund website even identified the specific cases and the breakouts from them. [00:47:10] Speaker 04: So nobody knew what the government was doing here, certainly not Congress. [00:47:14] Speaker 02: What a page two, your brief. [00:47:19] Speaker 02: Can you say again what it says? [00:47:21] Speaker 04: Sure. [00:47:22] Speaker 04: We said the BAT proceeds arise from IEPA violations and related criminal conspiracies or themes. [00:47:28] Speaker 04: And I draw you to that because I don't think it really matters which the court considers this to be here. [00:47:34] Speaker 04: Even if we're talking about IEPA violations themselves, they all arise from doing business with North Korea, setting up this framework, this conspiracy back by 2007 when it was a state sponsor of terrorism. [00:47:47] Speaker 02: The line you quoted reads, as you quoted it, I mean, the top of the page says what you don't want it to say. [00:47:57] Speaker 02: The top of the page says, an issue here is whether, under this provision, proceeds paid to the government to settle a long-running conspiracy and scheme by BAT to violate IEPA and commit bank fraud. [00:48:09] Speaker 02: So I think the line you quoted is helpful. [00:48:14] Speaker 02: I'm not sure it's enough, but I'll think on it. [00:48:17] Speaker 04: Well, Your Honor, I think for the purpose of our timing argument, at least, it doesn't matter which one. [00:48:21] Speaker 04: And on the broader interpretation argument, our point is that we've never tried to segment out conspiracies from the IEPA violations. [00:48:29] Speaker 04: We do think the most natural reading is just apply the last antecedent canon, because that's consistent with what the amici have told us Congress was trying to do here. [00:48:37] Speaker 04: Thank you so much for your time, Your Honors. [00:48:40] Speaker 05: Thank you.