 Under Karzai's administration, electoral fraud was so apparent that Afghanistan's status as a democratic state came into question.Furthermore, a special court set up personally by Karzai in defiance of constitutional norms sought to reinstate dozens of candidates who were removed for fraud in the 2010 parliamentary elections by the Independent Electoral Commission.On 28 April 2013, "The New York Times" revealed that from December 2002 up to the publication date, Karzai's presidential office was funded with "tens of millions of dollars" of black cash from the CIA in order to buy influence within the Afghan government.