Trump seeks to oust U.S. Attorney Damian Williams

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said that he wants to replace Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, with Jay Clayton, his former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The proposed change, which Trump announced in a Truth Social post, comes as Williams is overseeing several high-profile prosecutions — including the public corruption case against Mayor Adams, the sex trafficking case against Sean “Diddy” Combs and the campaign finance case against former Lt. Gov Brian Benjamin.
“Jay is a highly respected business leader, counsel, and public servant,” Trump wrote of his former SEC chairman from 2017 to 2020, now a senior advisor and attorney at high-powered Manhattan law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
“Jay is going to be a strong Fighter for the Truth.”
A spokesman for Williams declined to comment or indicate whether he would step down before Trump takes office.
Under Williams’ leadership, the SDNY, historically known for handling complex white-collar cases, has secured the high-profile convictions of fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, investor and Archegos Capital founder Bill Hwang and exiled Chinese tycoon and Steve Bannon associate Guo Wengui.
Williams has also aggressively prioritized going after public corruption, winning a conviction earlier this year against New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez. His departure will come as SDNY is pursuing the high-profile bribery and corruption case against Mayor Adams and a series of other probes connected to City Hall.
It was not immediately clear how Williams’ departure might affect Adams’ case, though Trump has said he believes the mayor was unfairly targeted. “We were persecuted, Eric,” Trump said to Adams during the recent Al Smith charity dinner. “You’re gonna win, Eric.”
Adams, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, came under fire from fellow Democrats in the run-up to the election for comments about Trump that were seen as out of step with the party’s position. Asked for the mayor’s reaction to the Clayton pick, his spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak said: “As Mayor Adams has said, every elected leader has a right to nominate and appoint the people they see best fit to serve. President-elect Trump is no different.”
President Biden nominated Williams in 2021, making him the first Black American to lead the powerful prosecutor’s office and, at 41, one of the youngest to hold the position. Had Vice President Kamala Harris won the presidency, he was believed to be in the running for a top appointment.
Clayton, 58, a longtime corporate attorney before Trump tapped him to lead the SEC and a board member of Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s largest asset management firms, has no experience with criminal prosecutions.
Trump tried to tap Clayton as head of the SDNY without success in 2020 after former Attorney General Bill Barr unceremoniously tried to force out U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman.
That resulted in a dramatic showdown when Berman, at the time investigating several allies of the president, including Rudy Giuliani, refused to resign, objecting to Clayton’s nomination because he had no prosecutorial experience. Berman was then dismissed by Trump and agreed to leave the post when it was decided that his deputy, Audrey Strauss, would take over in an acting capacity.
If Clayton makes it through the Senate confirmation process, it remains to be seen whether he will see Williams’ war on public corruption through to its conclusion — and whether the SDNY will retain its “sovereign district” moniker for its renowned independence from Main Justice in Washington, D.C.
Trump, who has vowed to seek retribution against his perceived enemies, appears to be following through on his stated goal to “completely overhaul” the DOJ, which brought two indictments against him after his first term, by filling it with loyalists.
His pick for attorney general, Florida congressman and staunch ally Matt Gaetz, sent shockwaves through the DOJ on Wednesday. And after announcing Clayton as his SDNY pick on Thursday, Trump said he would tap the lead attorneys who repped him in his Manhattan hush-money case, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, as deputy attorney general and principal associate deputy attorney general, respectively.
In his memoir, “Holding the Line: Inside the Nation’s Preeminent U.S. Attorney’s Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department,” Berman wrote about Trump weaponizing his DOJ and a directive he received to “even things out” after the SDNY prosecuted Trump’s longtime former fixer, Michael Cohen.
“Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining – in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired,” Berman wrote.
“I walked this tightrope for two and a half years. Eventually, the rope snapped.”
With Chris Sommerfeldt