Jamie McDonald Goes From Crypto Cop to Crypto Courtroom Captain 🏛️

President Donald Trump said Saturday he intends to appoint James M. McDonald as the next U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, placing a former derivatives regulator with deep crypto experience atop the country's most active venue for digital-asset prosecutions. In a post on Truth Social, Trump praised McDonald, an Oklahoma native and former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the district, and said he would deliver strong results for the office. "I am confident that Jamie will deliver strong results for our Country as the next United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as he has the respect of, and will work fantastically with, our Law Enforcement Patriots, the Legal Community, and the Judicial Bench," he wrote.

McDonald served as Director of Enforcement at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during Trump's first term. From 2017 to 2020, McDonald ran the agency's entire enforcement program, including investigations, market surveillance and the whistleblower office, at a regulator that has brought some of the largest cases against crypto firms. He joined Sullivan & Cromwell as a partner in 2021, where he has represented exchanges and individuals across the crypto sector in government investigations, among them BlockFi in its settlement with the SEC and 52 states and territories. Sullivan & Cromwell also represented FTX in its bankruptcy proceedings.

The Southern District has handled the bulk of the country's highest-profile crypto cases. Its prosecutors secured the conviction of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, charged Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky, and pursued cases against other figures in the digital-asset sector. The district's docket has included prosecutions tied to $BTC and $ETH-related schemes, market manipulation cases, and fraud charges against operators of unregistered exchanges. McDonald's confirmation would place a former enforcement chief from a crypto-active regulator into the top job at a venue that has shaped the legal landscape for digital assets in the United States.