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 Cy’s Dilemma, CRT, and the Defection of Kelly Campbell Good afternoon, and welcome back The Daily Courant, a members-only synopsis of the latest and most urgent reportage being published at Puck.
Today, William D. Cohan examines the two dominant theories for a potential indictment against the Trump Organization—or against Donald Trump, himself. But as Cohan explains, the available evidence may be far more prosaic than meets the eye. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance could be leaving his successor with an historic conundrum. Plus, below the fold, don’t miss Peter Hamby’s riveting analysis of the quadrennial Rorschach test that is the Virginia gubernatorial race—an off-year fetish for the political-media class that nonetheless may hold the key to Joe Biden’s fate in 2024.
Most financial projections are rosy, as Wall Street well knows. That’s why banks have credit committees in the first place. But winning the case may prove more troublesome than having opened it at all. In May, Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, convened a grand jury to consider whether the Trump Organization and any of its dozen or so employees, including Donald Trump and Alan Weisselberg, the company’s chief financial officer, should be indicted. At the time, Vance said the grand jury would meet three times a week for six months. Of course, that six-month clock ends next month, and Vance will be leaving office at the end of the year, replaced, most likely, by Alvin Bragg, the winner of Democratic primary race for Vance’s vacant seat. And so it seems like a fortuitous moment to consider the remarkable prospect of criminal charges being brought against Trump—and whether Bragg would actually decide to prosecute the case should the grand jury hand up an indictment of the former president.
At the turn of the millennium, I spent a month on a Manhattan grand jury. I was elected secretary, meaning that I was the one who tallied the votes of my fellow 23 jurists after each prosecutor’s presentation and the one who conveyed the votes to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. I learned more than a little something about the way people vote on a grand jury. And I am here to tell you that the old saw about a grand jury being willing to indict a ham sandwich is true, even if the actual expression is “a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich in the death of a pig,” which, as one district attorney told me, provides the expression an entirely different context. In any event, it is the rare grand jury that does not indict, just as it is the rare scorpion that doesn’t sting.
So, if one of Vance’s assistant district attorneys actually asks a Manhattan grand jury to consider the indictment of Donald J. Trump, it appears a virtual certainty that Trump will be indicted. That’s just what grand juries do, by and large. What exactly the indictment would say is anyone’s guess at this moment, and those who know what it might contain aren’t talking, for obvious reasons. But there have been plenty of rumors circulating around town about what Vance has been investigating…
FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT 
Longtime “Hulugans,” as they call themselves, describe “total dysfunction” in the company culture since Disney’s takeover of Fox assets in 2019.
MATTHEW BELLONI 
The Virginia gubernatorial race is always a fetish for politicos—an off-year Rorschach test and harbinger of the general mood. This year’s iteration is more indicative than ever.
PETER HAMBY 
Despite coverage suggesting the contrary, Facebook is not facing an existential crisis, and Frances Haugen is far from Facebook’s worst nightmare.
DYLAN BYERS 
Serious China watchers fear that businesses have underestimated the gravity of Xi’s “regulatory crackdown”—but privately worry that Washington isn’t responding with nearly enough nuance.
WILLIAM D. COHAN
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