“From a legal perspective,” he said, “the question . . . ‘is it a state-sponsored attack?’ isn't really relevant in terms of what we're looking at. The question is whether this [had] a material or an adverse effect on the asset we are buying.”

One can see why he didn't want to call "bullshit" publicly, and the news media is required to be dumb, but does anyone with a clue really believe these oh-so-convenient "state actor" attributions? We're supposed to imagine that Russia: 1) wanted what Yahoo had, and 2) wanted to get caught at it. What's the motivation? Did Marissa cut in front of some favored oligarch at the ski lift in Davos or something?