A prominent US Attorney’s office reportedly plans to reduce its focus on crypto cases with Donald Trump headed back to the White House.
On Thursday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he planned to nominate Jay Clayton as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Clayton led the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during Trump’s previous term and has made crypto-friendly comments recently.
Scott Hartman, co-chief of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force at the Southern District, said at a conference this week that the office won’t ignore crypto but also won’t have as many prosecutors focused on the sector, Reuters reports.
“We brought a lot of big cases in the wake of the crypto winter – there were a lot of important fraud cases to bring there – but we know our regulatory partners are very active in this space.”
Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, prosecuted numerous crypto cases in recent years, including Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX.
After expressing skepticism about Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto during his previous presidential term, Trump spent the past year on the campaign trail promising to protect and grow the digital asset sector.
At campaign events over the past months, he promised to fire current SEC Chair Gary Gensler on his first day in office and end policies that prevent crypto investors and companies from using digital assets.
He also said the US would stop selling its trove of seized Bitcoin on the open market and instead strategically hold the asset as an investment.
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