Jay Clayton, the man who once ran the Securities and Exchange Commission and later served as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has been nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the nation’s intelligence apparatus as Director of National Intelligence. Trump announced the pick on June 11, 2026, via Truth Social.
From SEC chair to intelligence nominee
Clayton’s relationship with Trump’s policy apparatus dates back to 2017, when he was first confirmed as SEC Chairman with a bipartisan 61-37 Senate vote. He held that post through December 2020, a tenure defined by a push to simplify capital markets access and, more consequentially for crypto watchers, an aggressive enforcement posture toward digital assets.
The highest-profile action from that era was the SEC’s $1.3 billion enforcement case against Ripple Labs over its sales of XRP. That lawsuit, filed in Clayton’s final weeks as chairman, became one of the most consequential legal battles in crypto history and shaped how the industry thought about securities classification for years afterward.
After leaving the SEC, Clayton joined One River Asset Management’s Academic and Regulatory Advisory Council in March 2021, a role focused on crypto regulation and stablecoin strategy.
