The Lincoln assassination: the strange tale of the swaps push-out

A US senator facing a tough re-election, staffers intent on radical reform, and a Congress afraid to be seen as soft on banks in an election year: in mid-2010, the stars aligned to allow passage of the so-called Lincoln amendment, which was neutered – to howls of outrage – late last year. Told for the first time, this is the unlikely story of the provision’s birth

By 5am on June 24, 2010, attempts to agree the final text of the Dodd-Frank Act were in the twentieth hour of their seventh day. Ties had been loosened and sleeves rolled up, suit jackets were long gone; the staffers passing in and out of the conference room to make technical edits to the draft bill had lost their manic energy.

Even the sight of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman, Gary Gensler, stalking around the room in his socks – having discarded pinching shoes hours ago –