Former President Trump Indicted By Grand Jury For Hush Money Payment During 2016 Campaign

The lede from The New York Times story reads

"A Manhattan grand jury indicted Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to people with knowledge of the matter, a historic development that will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges."

The specific charges aren’t yet known, just that they relate to “hush money” paid to Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Donald Trump.

The Washington Post reports Republican leaders are rallying around Trump, calling the indictment politically motivated. Mike Pence, the former vice president, said on CNN,

“I think the unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage. This will only further serve to divide our country.”

Pence is right, this will further divide the country. But it would in either case, as many would like to see Donald Trump indicted.

On his outrage, how can anyone conclude it’s an outrage if we don’t yet know the specific charges?

Are Republicans arguing a hush money payment disguised as legal fees isn’t serious enough to warrant indicting a former president? That is certainly consistent with dismissing the impropriety of Trump’s call to Ukraine’s president and his role in the attempted insurrection on January 6. If neither warranted convicting the impeached president, why prosecute a candidate for hiding a modest $130,000 payment?

Unfortunately, the Republican rationale reinforces the unfortunate reality that the application of the law seems inversely proportional to the financial wealth and stature of the defendant.

As this indictment comes from a grand jury through a district attorney — a district attorney whose career will be torpedoed for flimsy charges that a jury would quickly dismiss, there’s probably something there.

So quiet on the set. Let’s await the specifics and let the legal process play out.

The Greatest U.S. Blunder of My Lifetime: The Invasion of Iraq

T

he U.S. invasion of Iraq, predicated on Saddam Hussein secretly developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), started 20 years ago today, on March 20, 2003.

I recall landing at LAX that night, walking through the terminal and seeing images from CNN: dark skies over Baghdad lit up with tracers from anti-aircraft guns and explosions from U.S. bombs.

Colin Powell had convinced me, in his speech to the United Nations Security Council, that we had intelligence confirming WMD, which justified invading and toppling Hussein.

That proved false. But his other prediction, “If you break it you own it,” played out tragically, not ending after America’s official withdrawal in 2011. Echoes of the war will span generations, as poignantly told in this reflection by Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

In an article in The New York Times, Peter Baker assesses former President Bush’s perspective about the invasion of Iraq:

As far as he is concerned, the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, and he has told advisers he has not changed his mind about that.

Perhaps. But was it worth the carnage?

The invasion succeeded in toppling Mr. Hussein, by all accounts one of the world’s most brutal dictators, but touched off a virulent insurgency and relentless sectarian civil war that ultimately killed 4,600 American troops and 3,650 contractors, at least 45,000 members of the Iraqi military and police, at least 35,000 insurgents and an estimated 200,000 civilians.

I hold fromer President George Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney — a strong advocate for the invasion — responsible for the greatest blunder in U.S. policy during my lifetime. Aside from any guilt they may silently carry, only God can hold them accountable when they pass from this life.

The Failure of Silicon Valley Bank

A run on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) late last week — when account holders started withdrawing money, fearful that the bank didn’t have sufficient funds to honor their requests, thus fulfilling their fears that the bank would not have the funds to cover all withdrawals — led to the bank’s collapse, the second largest bank failure in U.S. history according to NBC News.

U.S. regulators stepped in, spending the weekend developing a plan to protect all deposited funds, even those exceeding the $250,000 guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

The SVB of last week is no more, replaced by a “bridge bank” with a new CEO:

Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, N.A. is a new bank that is regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, N.A. has fully stepped into the shoes of the former Silicon Valley Bank. — Company News, March 14

SVB’s prior management has no bank to manage, only management questions to answer and tarnished reputations to defend.

The demise of this regional bank, which catered to VCs and their startup companies, unleashed debates about the cause of the collapse and whether the government’s move to protect depositors was a “bailout,” a term that became a pejorative following the Great Recession of 2008. Some argue the FDIC ceiling should not have been raised — don’t protect those rich VCs from moral hazard. Some have inferred that the bank’s failure reflected the higher risk of the startup companies it served.

I think both conclusions are unwarranted. From the varied news reports and opinions I’ve read and heard, I’ve concluded the following:

What Triggered the Run?

Probably to minimize risk and adhere to regulatory requirements, SVB invested some of its deposits in long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. As the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to reduce inflation, the lower yields of SVB’s bonds became a liability: investors could buy Treasury bonds at higher yields than those held by SVB. Faced with a threatened downgrade by Moody’s and depositors withdrawing funds, the bank moved to sell $21.4 billion in bonds — taking a loss of $1.8 billion. That spooked the market and accelerated the run to withdraw funds, which the bank simply couldn’t fulfill. Too much, too fast.

The post mortem on the collapse must determine whether SVB understood its increasing vulnerability as the Fed repeatedly raised interest rates. If so, did it assess the probability of a run, perhaps judging it too low to require action? The threat of Moody’s downgrading SVB apparently prompted management to act, but its options were limited, as it was boxed in by the difference in yields between the bonds it held and current rates.

Making this autopsy more interesting, regulations for mid-sized banks like SVB were relaxed by Congress in 2018, with the bank’s CEO, Greg Becker, an outspoken advocate for looser regulations. Would the previous regulations have prevented SVB’s failure? Or identified the vulnerability in time to address it before the bank run and subsequent collapse?

Coincidentally, the CEO exercised options to buy and sell 12,451 shares of the bank on February 27. Daniel Beck, the CFO, sold 2,000 shares the same day. Both transactions were apparently prescheduled under a 10b5-1 insider trading plan, so they may not indicate that the executives anticipated the failure and sought to enrich themselves. Investigations by the SEC and Justice Department will provide more insight and, hopefully, prosecution if warranted.

Saving the Depositors

Addressing the brouhaha over the $250,000 FDIC insurance limit (per customer per account), let’s start by not equating a checking or savings account as an investment. A key element of a bank’s mission is to provide a safe haven for depositors, one less source of financial risk.

Presumably, many of the accounts at SVB were with businesses, many with multi-million dollar cash flows for staff, supplies, finished goods, capital expenditures, etc. Losing these funds because a company’s account balances exceed the FDIC limit would impair company operations, perhaps catastrophically. Increasing the FDIC limit seems a prudent step to protect the companies and all those who support their operations — none guilty of making a reckless investment.

As the FDIC insurance pool is funded by the banks, not taxpayers, it can be considered a cost of doing business, an investment to ensure public confidence in the banking system.

In the few days since SVB’s collapse, I’m reading of an influx of deposits in big banks such as Bank of America and Citibank, reflecting uncertainty about the security of funds held at regional and local banks. For most individuals, the $250,000 FDIC insurance will be sufficient; however, for companies with larger deposits in checking or savings accounts, increasing the limit seems appropriate and consistent with the goal of a secure banking system.

The FDIC was formed by Congress in 1933. Let’s see if the current recalcitrant Congress will move beyond rhetoric to increase insurance coverage and tighten the regulations to address the root causes of SVB’s failure.

Update: March 18, 2023

Apparently no white knight will rescue SVB, as the parent SVB Financial announced it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to sell off the assets of the core bank, although not the funds and general partner entities and SVB Securities.

Reuters reported SVB had only $2.2 billion in liquidity, compared to assets of $209 billion at the end of last year. What a fall.