Teddy: Eriq, thanks for doing this, and I’m glad you’re not typing this out on a flip phone, like the kind prosecutors want Sam Bankman-Fried to use à la Chuck Schumer. Let’s start with the question I get asked more than any other: Is S.B.F. legally cooked? It certainly feels that way, especially after Nishad Singh, his co-founder at FTX, pleaded guilty last week as part of a cooperation deal.

Eriq: No flip phone for me. Just a PalmPilot 1000. Actually, believe it or not, I’m not quite ready to hang Bankman-Fried just yet. Sure, it looks quite bad, but it almost always does at this stage of a prosecution. Just wait till next month when Sam’s lawyers start bringing motions to chip away at the case. That may cause some re-examination, if not outright skepticism.

[Why would prosecutors bother to cut a deal with Bankman-Fried? They’ve already got deals with his partners to cooperate in a prosecution against SBF. They also have reams of materials from interviews SBF did in attempts to explain away his fraud before his arrest. I do agree that the campaign-finance fraud charges will be difficult to sustain, but even there, prosecutors have SBF’s public admission of using straw donors to hide his campaign contributions. It’s always good to wait and see, but this doesn’t look like a case that prosecutors need to bargain in order to get a conviction. — Ed]