The Key Role of Manhattan Federal Prosecutors
NEW YORK — Manhattan federal prosecutors, nerves shaken in recent weeks by clashes with Justice Department officials in Washington, have been asking themselves one question: What will Jay Clayton do?
Clayton is President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. attorney for Manhattan. If confirmed by the Senate, he will lead one of the most powerful prosecutorial offices in the country — one that prides itself on its independence.
But for the rank-and-file prosecutors in the office, the intentions of Clayton — who has never worked as a prosecutor — are a mystery. Some have grown increasingly concerned that, rather than guarding the office’s independence, he is inclined to enforce obedience to the Trump agenda being handed down from DOJ headquarters.
Assessing Clayton’s Background and Reactions
On the one hand, Clayton, 58, is seen as an affable, experienced and principled lawyer with serious credentials, albeit not in criminal law. He led the Securities and Exchange Commission without significant controversy during the first Trump administration — and he even promoted diversity, equity and inclusion measures there. Since then, he has been a top lawyer at one of the most prestigious law firms in the country.
Prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, known formally as the Southern District of New York, initially viewed him as a largely benign pick, believing him to be better qualified than many of Trump’s other nominees for law enforcement jobs.
On the other hand, a few recent developments have caused some people at SDNY to lose confidence in him — before he’s even in the job. The firm where Clayton works, Sullivan & Cromwell, has recently forged close ties to Trump, agreeing to represent the president as he appeals his criminal conviction in the Manhattan hush money case. Clayton has tried to recruit another lawyer at the firm to be his deputy U.S. attorney.
And Clayton — who did not respond to requests for comment — has been publicly mum about a controversy that sparked a revolt within the office last month: the order from Trump’s DOJ to drop criminal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. In recent weeks, word has spread among some rank-and-file prosecutors and alumni of the office that Clayton privately advised the interim head of the office, Danielle Sassoon, to follow the order rather than resign, according to four people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Sassoon declined to comment.
The Significance of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office
Arguably the most important federal prosecutorial office in the country, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office oversees Wall Street and regularly prosecutes some of the biggest white-collar criminal cases. It has aggressively prosecuted public corruption cases against members of both political parties, including Trump’s former “fixer” Michael Cohen, former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and, until recently, Adams, a Democrat.
Perhaps more importantly for Trump’s purposes, the office could also play a role in the president’s desire for retribution against some of his past courtroom adversaries. Trump has called for investigations of several New York judges and prosecutors, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who brought the hush money case. Any such probes might be conducted by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office.
Clayton’s Professional Background and Connections
Clayton would come to the office with years of regulatory experience in the financial sector, as well as corporate governance and mergers-and-acquisitions work. He has handled the initial public offerings of Ally Financial and Alibaba Group, among many others. At the SEC, he was known for his focus on protecting retail investors.
He also has a decidedly un-Trumpy element of his resume: He championed diversity, equity and inclusion. Trump has attacked so-called DEI measures in his second term and has ordered DEI offices eliminated within all federal agencies.
But when he ran the SEC, Clayton promoted DEI, according to his biography on Sullivan & Cromwell’s website.
“Mr. Clayton and his senior leadership team made diversity, inclusion and opportunity a daily priority throughout the organization,” the bio says.
Clayton developed the first “Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan” for the SEC, and he led the commission’s diversity council. He also established a “diversity and inclusion senior policy adviser” position.
Assessing Potential Implications and Reactions
Clayton is also longtime close friends with one of Trump’s nemeses: former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, who oversaw multiple criminal investigations into Trump before being succeeded by Bragg. It was Bragg who secured the criminal conviction against Trump in the hush money case, where Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of business fraud to conceal payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Vance, a Democrat, described Clayton as well respected and a “rare bird in the legal community.”
“He doesn’t do underhanded things, he’s not a backstabber,” Vance said, adding that “it’s not a sign of weakness to him to ask questions.”
Vance said he has offered to give Clayton guidance about the relationship between the Manhattan DA’s office (a state-level entity) and the federal U.S. attorney’s office that Clayton has been tapped to run. But when it comes to dealing with Trump, “Jay is going to do what Jay thinks is right, and he’s not going to do anything that he thinks is wrong,” Vance said. “He will hold his line.”
Some SDNY prosecutors are not so sure. As they prepare for Clayton’s likely confirmation and arrival at the office, they are beginning to question whether he will seek to preserve the office’s reputation for keeping Washington at arms-length, a dynamic that has earned it the nickname the “Sovereign District of New York.”
Recent Developments and Ongoing Concerns
In January, Trump hired five lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell, including the firm’s co-chair, to handle the president’s appeal of his criminal conviction, further cementing Trump’s links to the firm.
Weeks later, DOJ’s then-No. 2 official, Emil Bove, ordered Sassoon to drop the Adams corruption case, which the office had spent years building. Bove told Sassoon that he wasn’t questioning the strength of the evidence or the legal theories underpinning the case, but that the Trump administration believed the prosecution was interfering with the Democratic mayor’s ability to enforce Trump’s immigration policies.
Adams is charged with wire fraud and bribery for allegedly participating in a yearslong conspiracy to receive illegal foreign campaign contributions. He has denied the allegations. (DOJ’s request to drop the charges remains pending before a judge.)
Rather than follow the order, Sassoon quit in protest, penning an eight-page letter rejecting Bove’s arguments and accusing him of improperly agreeing to abandon the case in exchange for the mayor’s support for Trump policies.
Her decision to resign rather than comply with Bove’s directive was widely praised by hundreds of alumni of the office, including seven former Manhattan U.S. attorneys. A wave of other career prosecutors — in both New York and Washington — similarly resigned in protest.
Soon after, word of Clayton’s advice to Sassoon to follow Bove’s order began to circulate within the office.
Meanwhile, according to three people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to speak publicly, Clayton has begun soliciting possible deputies, eyeing a former Southern District public corruption prosecutor, James McDonald, to be deputy U.S. attorney, the No. 2 job in the office.
McDonald didn’t respond to a request for comment.
McDonald is a fellow Sullivan & Cromwell partner whose career Clayton described on a podcast as “nothing but meteoric.” It appears unlikely, however, that McDonald will take the job, these people said. In January, he became one of the Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers hired to represent Trump.
