Trump Picks FTX Prosecutor as Interim Manhattan US Attorney (1)

President Donald Trump moved quickly to put his stamp on the federal prosecutor’s office responsible for policing Wall Street, naming an assistant Manhattan US attorney who helped put FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried behind bars to the top job.

Danielle Sassoon will serve as interim Manhattan US attorney of the Southern District of New York until Trump’s nominee, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, is confirmed by the Senate. She replaces Edward Kim, who became acting US attorney after his former boss, Biden appointee Damian Williams, resigned ahead of Trump’s inauguration.

Danielle Sassoon

Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg

A spokesman for the US attorney’s office said Sassoon assumed the role late Monday. Her appointment was ordered by acting US Attorney General James McHenry, who was also put in office Monday to oversee the Justice Department until Trump nominee Pam Bondi is confirmed. Kim declined to comment.

Sassoon, a Yale Law School graduate who clerked for late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has been a prosecutor in the office since 2016. One of the lead prosecutors in Bankman-Fried’s high-profile fraud 2023 trial, she performed a devastating cross-examination of the former cryptocurrency billionaire. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

It’s unusual for an incoming administration to appoint an interim US attorney ahead of its nominee’s confirmation, though such a move fits with Trump’s vows to remake the federal bureaucracy. Along with Sassoon, McHenry also named acting US attorneys for Brooklyn, New York, and Washington.

Along with its focus on financial crimes, the Manhattan US attorney’s office is also at the center of many political corruption prosecutions, including that of New York Mayor Eric Adams. Trump has said he’s considering pardoning Adams, who attended his inauguration. In his first term, Trump also clashed with the notoriously independent office, leading to a string of changes at the leadership level.

Long Island Unit

The FTX case was the biggest of several prosecutions brought against crypto industry figures by Williams, who resigned from the post in December. Trump has signaled support for crypto, suggesting the US should have a strategic Bitcoin reserve.

As in Manhattan, Trump elevated an office veteran in Brooklyn. John J. Durham, who was sworn in Tuesday as acting US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, previously led the office’s Long Island unit and oversaw gang, terrorism and public corruption cases. He’s also the son of John H. Durham, the special counsel Trump appointed to investigate the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe of Russian influence in the 2016 election.

Trump has nominated Joseph Nocella Jr., a Long Island judge, to be US attorney in Brooklyn.

In Washington, Trump installed conservative activist Ed Martin as acting US attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin’s first tasks in the role include carrying out Trump’s mass clemency for participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Martin, a former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, was a prominent supporter of Trump’s “stop the steal” movement aimed at overturning the 2020 election and had been a high-profile critic of the Jan. 6 prosecutions.

Trump has yet to nominate someone for the Washington US attorney post.

(Updates with Trump naming prosecutors for Brooklyn and Washington)

--With assistance from Patricia Hurtado and Zoe Tillman.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Ava Benny-Morrison in New York at abennymorris@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Anthony Lin at alin364@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth

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