“Sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal.” Those were the words of Nairi Hourdajian, Uber’s head of global communications, in a message sent to a colleague in 2014 as the company was facing the prospect of being shut down in Thailand and India.

Revealed as part of a trove of more than 124,000 leaked documents and correspondences from 2013 to 2017, dubbed the “Uber Files,” the admission gets to the core of how Uber became the globe-spanning transportation company it is today: by breaking laws, evading authorities, cultivating connections with powerful people, and putting its drivers on the front line of the backlash. The documents provide new details on aspects of the company that have come to light in recent years.

The Uber Files show how the company recognized it needed to get close to politicians to ensure it wasn’t regulated out of existence. David Plouffe and Jim Messina used connections and goodwill from their time in the Obama administration to help Uber expand across Europe and the Middle East, including getting US diplomats in France and the Netherlands to intervene on the company’s behalf. Uber also developed close relationships with former British chancellor George Osborne, French president Emmanuel Macron when he was economy minister, former European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes, and Toronto mayor John Tory, just to name a few.