Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, announced the appointment on Wednesday of a new deputy, James M. McDonald, who would oversee the prosecutor’s office while Mr. Clayton prepares for his confirmation process to be President Trump’s director of national intelligence.
Mr. Trump had already said he would nominate Mr. McDonald to succeed Mr. Clayton as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the nation’s most powerful law-enforcement positions.
But that move was delayed on June 17 after Mr. Trump said he would pull back Mr. Clayton’s nomination, hours before he was scheduled to have a confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The president was seeking to pressure the Senate to pass a strict voter identification law that lacked sufficient support to advance.
After Mr. Clayton’s nomination was paused, Mr. Trump installed Bill Pulte as the acting director for national intelligence. Critics on both sides of the aisle have said Mr. Pulte, the director of a federal housing agency, is a political loyalist with no relevant experience for the intelligence post.
Mr. Clayton’s confirmation hearing has now been scheduled for July 15, and Mr. Clayton titled his news release about Mr. McDonald’s appointment “S.D.N.Y. plans leadership transition.”
Congressional officials have said they hope to have Mr. Clayton installed in the intelligence post before the Senate takes a recess in August. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Clayton was the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. McDonald, who goes by Jamie, has been a litigation partner at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. He has also been a member of the law firm’s team that is handling Mr. Trump’s appeal of his criminal conviction in a Manhattan state court on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with concealing a hush-money payment to a porn star during the 2016 presidential campaign.
During Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. McDonald served as Director of Enforcement at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Before that, he spent several years as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District.
There, he was a member of the team that prosecuted Sheldon Silver, the once powerful Democratic speaker of the New York State Assembly who was convicted in a 2015 trial on corruption charges. Mr. Silver’s conviction was overturned on appeal, and he was retried, again convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. He died in 2022.)
Mr. Clayton graduated from Harvard College and the University of Virginia School of Law. He also served as a law clerk to Chief Justice James G. Roberts Jr.
Julian Barnes contributed reporting.
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