President Donald Trump has nominated James M. McDonald to serve as the next US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, filling the vacancy created when Jay Clayton departed to become Director of National Intelligence.
McDonald served as Director of Enforcement at the CFTC from 2017 to 2021. During that stretch, the agency ramped up its pursuit of cryptocurrency-related fraud, including a significant Bitcoin fraud case in the SDNY in 2019 worth millions of dollars.
Before his CFTC tenure, McDonald worked as an Assistant US Attorney in the very same Southern District office he’s now been nominated to lead.
He’s currently a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, the white-shoe law firm that represented the FTX bankruptcy estate.
Jay Clayton served as SDNY US Attorney since 2025. On June 11, 2026, he was appointed as Director of National Intelligence, creating the opening that Trump moved to fill just two days later with McDonald’s nomination on June 13.
McDonald wasn’t the only name in the mix. By early June 2026, the shortlist also included Deputy Sean Buckley and Nicolas Roos.
The Southern District of New York has been ground zero for major crypto prosecutions. It’s the office that brought charges in the FTX case, pursued Terraform Labs-related matters, and has handled a steady stream of digital asset fraud cases over the past several years.
The Sullivan & Cromwell connection adds another layer of complexity. The firm billed hundreds of millions of dollars in fees during the FTX bankruptcy proceedings and gained deep institutional knowledge of how a major crypto exchange operated, and failed.
For traders and investors, there were no immediate market reactions to the announcement.