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Donald Trump Picks 'Elite' Wall Street Lawyer To Head The SEC

Jay Clayton is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City and has represented some big Wall Street names.
Posted at 3:18 PM, Jan 04, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-04 15:18:00-05

A Wall Street attorney who's defended big banks could soon be in charge of keeping them in line.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump said he's tapping Jay Clayton to head the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and called him a "highly talented expert on many aspects of financial and regulatory law."

Clayton is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell law firm in New York City.

He's worked on some high-profile cases, including the initial public offerings of Alibaba and the sale of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks.

And during the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, he represented some of the biggest names on Wall Street, like Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital.

Clayton beat out former federal prosecutor Debra Wong Yang for the commission's top spot.