A senior Securities and Exchange Commission official abruptly resigned on Monday, raising questions about the agency’s ability to root out financial wrongdoing.
The official, Margaret A. Ryan, the S.E.C.’s enforcement chief, is leaving the agency just six months after joining it. Typically, S.E.C. enforcement chiefs serve for years.
The agency, created nearly a century ago at the height of the Great Depression to protect investors and oversee financial markets, did not provide a reason for Ms. Ryan’s sudden resignation. And Ms. Ryan, a former Marine and military judge, could not immediately be reached for comment.
In a statement provided by the S.E.C., Ms. Ryan thanked the agency’s chairman, Paul S. Atkins, and expressed confidence that “the foundation” they shaped together “will continue to serve investors and the markets well.”
Her departure — which comes as the S.E.C. undergoes a broader, business-friendly transformation in President Trump’s second term — could further embolden Mr. Atkins to rein in the agency’s enforcement division. Well before Ms. Ryan arrived, the agency had begun to retreat from a variety of Biden-era enforcement priorities, including cracking down on Wall Street and the cryptocurrency industry.
In December, The New York Times published an investigation into the S.E.C.’s backtracking from crypto cases, finding that the agency had eased up on more than 60 percent of the crypto lawsuits that were pending when Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. The agency paused some of its crypto cases, lessened penalties in others and outright dismissed several of the lawsuits.
The pullback, coinciding with a long-running government shutdown that stymied the agency, had prompted some key departures and depressed morale within pockets of the enforcement unit. Mr. Atkins, however, has contended that the agency needed to change, and that he was reining in the prior administration’s overzealous stance.
“Our goal has been to the lead the division of enforcement back to Congress’ original intent: enforcing the federal securities laws, particularly as they relate to fraud and manipulation,” Mr. Atkins said in the statement announcing Ms. Ryan’s departure. “I am pleased to report significant progress toward this objective,” he added, crediting Ms. Ryan, who he said “served with honor and distinction.”
Ms. Ryan, a former judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, was a somewhat unconventional pick to run the S.E.C.’s enforcement unit, which is often led by seasoned white-collar litigators. Still, some former agency officials cheered the arrival of a law-and-order judge, predicting she would push Mr. Atkins to adopt a more aggressive stance.
In its statement, the agency said that it expected to announce Ms. Ryan’s successor in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Sam Waldon, a longtime agency official who was serving as a deputy enforcement chief, will be the acting director.
Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, covering President Trump.
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