U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, currently leading prosecution of Mayor Adams, resigning post ahead of replacement by Trump

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, the head of the Justice Department’s Southern District of New York (SDNY) office who presided over the historic criminal indictment against Mayor Eric Adams, announced Monday he intends to resign his post as of Dec. 13.

Williams’ impending resignation comes ahead of his anticipated replacement by incoming President-elect Donald Trump, who has indicated he would nominate former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Jay Clayton as SDNY leader.

“Today is a bittersweet day for me, as I announce my resignation as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York,” Williams said in a Nov. 25 statement. “It is bitter in the sense that I am leaving my dream job, leading an institution I love that is filled with the finest public servants in the world. It is sweet in that I am confident I am leaving at a time when the Office is functioning at an incredibly high level – upholding and exceeding its already high standard of excellence, integrity, and independence. That success is due to the career attorneys, staff members, and law enforcement agents of this office.”

Deputy U.S. Attorney Edward Kim will serve as acting U.S. Attorney of the SDNY upon Williams’ Dec. 13 departure and remain at the helm until Clayton or another Trump appointee to the post is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

If confirmed by the SDNY post, Clayton will report to the attorney general. Trump — who campaigned on seeking political prosecutions — has tapped former Florida AG Pam Bondi for the post after his original choice, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, withdrew from consideration amid allegations regarding alleged sexual misconduct. 

President Joe Biden appointed Williams to the post in August 2021, and the Senate confirmed his nomination three months later. He had previously served as an assistant U.S. Attorney with the SDNY and specialized in white-collar criminal cases involving political and financial corruption. Prior to his SDNY service, he also was a clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland, who would serve as attorney general for President Biden.

The biggest case of Williams’ tenure came this past September, when a grand jury indicted Mayor Adams on a five-count criminal indictment alleging that the city’s chief executive engaged in bribery, wire fraud and illegally soliciting foreign donations for his 2021 mayoral campaign. The indictment was the result of a years-long investigation into Adams and campaign associates.

Adams has repeatedly denied the charges and claimed without evidence that the case was politically motivated because of his criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant crisis. After Trump — who had been indicted three times and convicted once in four separate criminal cases before his re-election on Nov. 5 — publicly sympathized with the mayor’s predicament, rumors began swirling that Adams had been cozying up to the candidate/president-elect in search of a pardon, which the mayor has also denied.

Clayton, Trump’s anticipated appointment to head the SDNY office, served as SEC chair for almost all of Trump’s first term as president. In his December 2020 farewell letter to the outgoing president, Clayton touted the SEC’s efforts to modernize the regulatory framework with more than 90 new rules, obtained more than “$14 billion in monetary remedies in enforcement actions and returned a record of approximately $3.5 billion to harmed investors.”

The SDNY has become perhaps the most well-known bureau of the Justice Department because of its high-profile prosecutions dealing largely with white-collar criminals and mob bosses.