Gilead
Donald Trump
Both of the cases that appear imminently destined for prosecution are being pursued by non-federal prosecutors. Doubts (putting it charitably) about Merrick Garland stand. It’s also important to note that there are no charges until there are actually charges. To some degree, all of this remains speculative. Still, it’s something: As Bess Levin observes, “at this point, most people had lost all hope that Trump would ever be held accountable for anything,”[1] and I’m still very much in a place where I’ll believe it when I see it.
Stormy Daniels
Fig. 1. Stormy Daniels at Ron Jeremy’s birthday party. Photograph by Luke Ford (Lukeisback.com), March 10, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.
Jonathan Dienst, “Law enforcement agencies are prepping for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week,” NBC News, March 17, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/law-enforcement-agencies-are-prepping-possible-trump-indictment-early-rcna75493
Maggie Haberman et al., “Trump Claims His Arrest Is Imminent and Calls for Protests, Echoing Jan. 6,” New York Times, March 18, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/trump-indictment-arrest-protests.html
Joe Palazzolo and Corinne Ramey, “Donald Trump Braces for Potential Charges in N.Y. Hush-Money Case, Calls for Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-braces-for-potential-charges-calls-for-protests-dd879b1f
Tom Nichols, “Trump Did It Again,” Atlantic, March 18, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/trump-arrest-indictment-protesters-mob/673437/
Hugo Lowell, “Trump in panic mode as he braces for likely charges in Stormy Daniels case,” Guardian, March 19, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/19/trump-manhattan-criminal-charges-hush-money-stormy-daniels
Charlie Savage, “Dissecting Charges That Could Arise From the Trump Investigations,” New York Times, March 19, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html
Bess Levin, “Is Donald Trump Going to Prison? And Answers to Every Other Burning Question About His Likely Indictment,” Vanity Fair, March 20, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/donald-trump-indictment-explainer
Coup attempt
Fig. 1. “Jake Angeli (Qanon Shaman), seen holding a Qanon sign at the intersection of Bell Rd and 75th Ave in Peoria, Arizona, on 2020 October 15.” Photography by TheUnseen011101 [pseud.], October 15, 2020, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Charlie Savage, “Dissecting Charges That Could Arise From the Trump Investigations,” New York Times, March 19, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html
Bess Levin, “Donald Trump’s Lawyers Seem Pretty Panicked He’s Going to be Indicted in Georgia Too,” Vanity Fair, March 20, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/donald-trump-potential-fulton-county-georgia-charges
Banking
Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse, 2023
Fig. 1. “The monument sign in front of the parking lot of the Silicon Valley Bank headquarters at 3003 West Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, California.” Photograph by Minh Nguyen, March 13, 2023, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Even if only half of uninsured depositors decide to withdraw, almost 190 banks are at a potential risk of impairment to even insured depositors, with potentially $300 billion of insured deposits at risk. If uninsured deposit withdrawals cause even small fire sales, substantially more banks are at risk. Overall, these calculations suggest that recent declines in bank asset values significantly increased the fragility of the US banking system to uninsured depositors runs . . . .[2]
Margot Patrick, Justin Baer, and Dana Cimilluca, “UBS Nears Deal to Take Over Credit Suisse,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-in-talks-to-take-over-credit-suisse-ed932b01
William D. Cohan, “The Last Days of SVB,” Puck, March 19, 2023, https://puck.news/the-last-days-of-svb/
David Goldman, “FDIC sells most of failed Signature Bank to Flagstar,” CNN, March 19, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/19/investing/fdic-signature-bank-assets-flagstar-hnk-intl/index.html
Margot Patrick et al., “UBS Agrees to Buy Credit Suisse for More Than $3 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-offers-1-billion-to-take-over-credit-suisse-bfac51fa
Marion Halftermeyer and Myriam Balezou, “How Scandal and Mistrust Ended Credit Suisse’s 166-Year Run,” Bloomberg, March 20, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-19/how-scandal-and-mistrust-ended-credit-suisse-s-166-year-history
Joe Rennison, “Banks Remain Under Pressure as Investors Eye Fallout From Rescue Deals,” New York Times, March 20, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/business/markets-today.html
- [1]Bess Levin, “Is Donald Trump Going to Prison? And Answers to Every Other Burning Question About His Likely Indictment,” Vanity Fair, March 20, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/donald-trump-indictment-explainer↩
- [2]Erica Xuewei Jiang et al., “Monetary Tightening and U.S. Bank Fragility in 2023: Mark-to-Market Losses and Uninsured Depositor Runs? [abstract]” SSRN, March 13, 2023, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4387676↩