 Trump’s Great Escape, Jason Kilar’s Next Act, & the Biden Malaise
Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to what’s new at Puck.
Today, William D. Cohan explores the legal and financial mystery surrounding the apparent collapse of Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s investigation into Donald Trump. If the investigation is ongoing, as Bragg now claims, then why did his two top prosecutors resign in protest?
Plus, below the fold: Julia Ioffe explains why Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine are more than just crimes against humanity. Matt Belloni grills Jason Kilar on a new episode of The Town. And Puck executive editor Benjamin Landy chats with Peter Hamby about whether Biden might be a one-term president.
Why did Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg apparently sideline an investigation into Trump’s business practices? And what might have happened, in a Vanceian era, had he not? Back in February, Wall Street and the legal bar experienced a collective shock wave of disbelief when Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne suddenly resigned, and, it seemed, in a huff. You may recall that former Manhattan D.A. Cy Vance hired Pomerantz, a revered prosecutor, last May as a “special assistant district attorney” to work with Dunne, Vance’s general counsel, to oversee the Manhattan D.A.’s criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s business practices. Vance, Pomerantz and Dunne were studying whether Trump had feloniously misled banks (in order to obtain loans) and taxing authorities (in order to evade taxes). The plot thickened, shortly thereafter, when The New York Times published Pomerantz’s resignation letter to Alvin Bragg, Vance’s successor as district attorney. It was a stunner, especially given the normally staid world of the white-shoe bar. The resignations and the steamy resignation letter were prompted by Bragg’s surprising decision, six weeks after taking office, to pretty much drop the grand jury investigation into Trump and, with it, the possibility that his office would even try to prosecute the former president. Since then, Wall Street has been trying to figure out if Bragg really lost all confidence in his office’s ability to prosecute Trump successfully. Did he not want a political headache? Was this some weird belt-tightening exercise? Or did he simply think a case was a waste of time?…
FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT 
Putin’s atrocities are a reminder that western peace-keeping institutions of the post-war era are defined by rhetoric, not substance.
JULIA IOFFE 
On billionaire hedge funder Tom Steyer’s Bloombergian post-political afterlife—and who might rise up in his place.
THEODORE SCHLEIFER 
Puck’s Belloni goes one-on-one with Jason Kilar, who recently resigned as WarnerMedia’s sometimes-controversial CEO.
MATTHEW BELLONI 
Will dismal approval ratings relegate Biden to a single term? Puck’s Ben Landy and Peter Hamby discuss.
PETER HAMBY
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