From: Noam Chomsky To: Harry Chomsk Cc: Avi Chomsky Bcc: [email protected] Subject: Re: Marital Trust Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 19:30:23 +0000 Diana Chomsky Sony, I made the same error as before. Fm finding it hard to shake the illusion that we are discussing things within a family, and are not characters in Bleak House. I'll try to remember. Below. On Sun, May 20, 2018 at 9:19 PM, Harry Chomsky wrote: It sounds like you would like me to say yes or no to your proposa exact y as you have stated it, without further discussion. I can't do that. Here are some reasons: I. It's not permitted under Massachusetts trust law. Can you -- or perhaps your lawyer — refer me to the part of Mass Trust Law that makes it illegal for beneficiaries to agree on distributing funds from a marital trust and then liquidate it? I can't find it. 1. I agreed to certain obligations when I became tntstee, and I have to make sure to discharge them faithfully. Even if you tell me you don't care about my fiduciary responsibility, the law says I'm responsible anyway. Your solemn obligations are no doubt impressive, but there is an easy way to put them to rest. Simply resign (permitted under Mass law) and then you will have no further obligations. We can then return to the situation before I appointed you to be a trustee, when I was a trustee and there were no problems about fiduciary responsibility — that was before the transition from family to Bleak House. I. It's not specific. For instance, you mention dividing the trust into two parts, but you don't say what each part would consist of. Correct. I left that for discussion, still laboring under my illusions. So I therefore suggest that you propose what you think would be an appropriate split and we can proceed from there. I. It's not complete. For instance, you haven't proposed any way to shield us and Max from liability for past actions. I hadn't realized that you are concerned that your past actions might make you l