8 No. 15-3047 he might pull strings to get me investigated and even prosecuted by any one of several federal or state agencies?” More significant than Visa’s denial of having succumbed to Sheriff Dart’s pressure tactics is the statement in the affidavit that the withdrawal of credit card services from Backpage “follow[ed] communication with Sheriff Dart’s staff” and with “Visa Legal Department” personnel. The reference was to those follow-up communications from the sheriff’s office promised (which is to say threatened) in the letters to Visa and MasterCard. The promise/threat was honored. The day after Dart sent the letter, his Director of Communications emailed Visa that he “wanted to give fair warning that we will be having a press conference tomorrow morning … . Obviously the tone of the press conference will change considerably if your executives see fit to sever ties with Backpage and its imitators. Of course we would need to know tonight if that is the case so that we can ensure the Sheriff’s messaging celebrates Visa’s change in direction as opposed to pointing out its ties to sex trafficking” (emphasis added). In an ensuing exchange of messages between two Visa employees, one said: “Yes, love the subtle messages they’ve been sending us that could easily be taken for blackmail.” To which the other replied that he’d told the boss of the Director of Communications “that he needs to tone down the threatening language … all of his emails as a public employee are, of course, discoverable and public, if anyone asks for them … . Sigh.” Visa understood that Sheriff Dart’s letter and the follow-up by his Director of Communications were serious threats and therefore had to be taken seriously. Visa and MasterCard were victims of government coercion aimed at shutting up or shutting down Backpage’s adult section (more likely aimed at bankrupting Backpage—