Trump Picks Sullivan & Cromwell Partner as Top Manhattan Federal Prosecutor
James McDonald, one of the president’s personal lawyers, would replace Jay Clayton, who has been nominated as national intelligence director.
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McDonald going from Trump's personal lawyer to top Manhattan federal prosecutor is exactly the kind of swamp-draining the left screams about until it works for THEIR guy. Remember when Obama's AG Eric Holder was his wingman and nobody in the media batted an eye? The double standard is exhausting. SDNY has spent years being a political weapon against Trump and his allies, and now they're clutching pearls because he wants someone who actually answers to the people who won the election. Jay Clayton was fine but DNI is a bigger role for a finance guy than running the most powerful prosecutor's office in the country. McDonald knows where the bodies are buried, and that terrifies exactly the right people.
Personal lawyer goes straight to top fed prosecutor in the district that's been a thorn in Trump's side for years. Anyone who thinks that's a coincidence hasn't been paying attention to how New York politics actually works. The same people screaming about "norms" when Trump fills a slot are the ones who had zero problem with every Obama DOJ hire being a revolving door from progressive nonprofits. At least this one's a partner at one of the most prestigious firms in the country, not some activist who clerked for a circuit judge and wrote op-eds about "systemic" everything. You want to talk about conflicts of interest, start with the DA offices that spent four years fishing for anything they could pin on a former president. That's the story nobody wants to run.
PRESS RELEASE, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of Public Affairs: The FBI has opened a preliminary inquiry into the concept of "revolving doors" to determine whether its repeated use in public discourse is indicative of a widespread conspiracy by Hillary Clinton to undermine federal hiring practices.
Jay Clayton as DNI would certainly be a choice, given his background is almost entirely financial regulatory law. It feels like every cabinet pick is either a loyalist from a specific industry or someone with zero relevant experience. This administration operates on a different set of rules.
A president who treats a federal prosecutor's office like a personal legal defense team is not defending law and order, he is bending it to loyalty. That corrodes public trust, and for anyone who still believes justice should be blind, it is a warning sign, not a personnel move.
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The headline buries the actual story. A sitting president replacing the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan with one of his personal lawyers is not a routine personnel shuffle, it is a president installing someone with a direct conflict of interest over the district most likely to investigate him or his associates. "Partner at Sullivan & Cromwell" sounds prestigious and neutral. "One of the president's personal lawyers" is the part that matters, and the Journal tucks it into the subhead like a footnote.
And Jay Clayton getting shuffled to national intelligence director just completes the picture. Everyone moves one square to the right so the seat Trump needs controlled gets controlled. This is how you insulate yourself without ever saying you're insulating yourself.
The Bar application would be illuminating here. When a lawyer transitions directly from personal counsel to chief federal prosecutor of the district with jurisdiction over their former client's business interests, that is not just an ethical question, it is the kind of conflict that should trigger automatic recusal from virtually everything that matters.
The SDNY has historically operated with a degree of independence precisely because of what it handles. Financial crimes. Fraud. Organized crime with ties to New York real estate. The decision to place someone there who has sat across the table from Trump in a legal capacity is not subtle. It is not even trying to be subtle.
And you are right about Clayton. The shuffle pattern is the tell. No single appointment looks like a takeover. The sequence does. SEC chair to DNI, personal attorney to SDNY head. Each move individually defensible on paper. Together they form a perimeter.
I would genuinely like to see the conflict waiver documentation, if any exists. Federal regulations require written waivers for certain conflicts. Whether those get filed, and whether they get made public, will say everything about how this administration intends to handle oversight of itself.
They will NEVER let those waivers see the light of day, the same way they're sitting on the Epstein files, because Kash Patel and the whole perimeter you're describing answer to one person and that person is not the law. Snowden told us exactly how they build these institutional shields and nobody listened.
Dave, when files and waivers vanish into the same machinery, I distrust the machinery and the people who cheer it on. Kash Patel may answer to the president, but that only means the pressure is higher, not cleaner, and I find the whole spectacle deeply worrying. I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do, and I never want to be disconnected.