There Was Really Just One Bank That Could Rescue First Republic

It’s Jamie Dimon again.

Famously the “last man standing” after the 2008 financial crisis, the JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive officer stuck around long enough to emerge victorious from the next mess. The government has ended up leaning on him even though it made the biggest US bank even bigger overnight.

For many on Wall Street and in Washington, JPMorgan’s size and complexity make it the kind of too-big-to-fail institution that keeps them up at night. But Dimon was also the CEO to whom Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen knew she could turn when she needed help corralling the nation’s ...