Damian Williams, Manhattan’s top prosecutor, resigned before Trump’s inauguration Reuters
Written by Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Damian Williams, the top state prosecutor in Manhattan who secured the conviction of high-profile defendants including U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, announced on Monday that he would resign before Donald Trump’s return to the presidency.
Williams, who was appointed to this position in 2021 by the outgoing Democratic President, Joe Biden, will step down on December 13 before the inauguration of the Republican Trump on January 20. Edward Kim, his current deputy, will succeed Williams as the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The office has an unusual degree of independence from the US Department of Justice and is known for bringing major cases of financial fraud and public corruption.
Trump has announced plans to nominate former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Jay Clayton to lead the office. The position requires confirmation by the US Senate.
During his tenure, Williams secured convictions of former billionaires for fraud — something he has long indicated was a priority.
Bankman-Fried was convicted in November 2023, then sentenced to 25 years in prison, on charges of stealing nearly $8 billion from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange in what prosecutors called the largest financial fraud in US history.
Archegos Capital Management founder Sung Kook “Bill” Hwang was convicted in July, and later sentenced to 18 years in prison, for manipulating the stock market, which cost Wall Street banks billions of dollars.
Bankman-Fried and Hwang both deny wrongdoing.
Williams also sharpened his office to focus on public corruption. In July, he secured the conviction of New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez on charges of fraud and acting as a foreign agent. Mendez, who denied wrongdoing and has since resigned, is awaiting sentencing.
In September, Williams sued New York City Mayor Eric Adams, also a Democrat. Adams pleaded not guilty.
“I am confident that I will be leaving at a time when the office is operating at an incredibly high level – raising and exceeding the already high standards of excellence, integrity and independence,” Williams said in a statement.
At last week’s conference, Clayton said his office is well positioned to focus on national security cases, as well as combating the financing of terrorism and money laundering.
A ROCKY RELATIONSHIP
Williams is the first black person to hold this position. He led the office’s security and supplies team before being nominated for the top regional post by Biden. Williams early in his legal career clerked for the liberal US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, and current US Attorney Merrick Garland while Garland served as an appellate judge.
If he steps down before Trump takes office, Williams will avoid potentially facing the fate of one of his predecessors, Preet Bharara, who was fired from the post in 2017 shortly after Trump became president. Bharara, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama in 2009, said Trump initially asked him to continue.
Trump had a strained relationship with Bharara’s successor, Geoffrey Berman, whose office obtained a guilty plea from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and filed two charges involving former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has served as Trump’s attorney. Williams’ office closed the investigation into Giuliani without filing charges.
Berman wrote in a 2022 memoir that the Trump administration wanted to pressure him to file criminal charges against the president’s political opponents.
“Throughout my time as a US Attorney, the Trump Justice Department has been forcing me to use my office to help them politically, and I’ve been on the decline,” Berman wrote.
In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Berman said Williams has “an incredible record of convictions and convictions.”
In his presidential campaign this year, Trump promised to use the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, which legal experts say could undermine the impartiality of prosecutors and undermine the practice of prosecutorial independence.
Williams praised the lawyers of his office as “patriots” and told them to work freely.
“They are worthy custodians of this office’s tradition of doing the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons,” Williams said in his statement.
