Caribbean-American United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams has announced his anticipated resignation ahead of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s assumption of Office on Jan. 20, 2025.
Williams, the son of a Jamaican-born immigrant physician who has served as the chief federal law enforcement officer in the district, said he intends to resign as a United States Attorney effective 11:59 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 13, 2024.
Williams said Edward Y. Kim, who currently serves as Deputy United States Attorney, will become the Acting United States Attorney on Williams’s departure.
Williams described his impending departure in a statement as “bittersweet,” saying 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,” he said. “That success is due to the career attorneys, staff members, and law enforcement agents of this Office.
“Working with them during my tenure has been a privilege of a lifetime,” Williams added. “They are worthy custodians of this Office’s tradition of doing the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons. They are patriots. They are my family. And I will miss them dearly.”
Williams thanked President Joe Biden for nominating him in 2021 as United States Attorney and US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland for leading the Department and supporting the Southern District of New York during his tenure.
“It has been an honor to serve the American people,” he said.
In addressing US Attorneys in the Southern District of New York last month, Garland said: “It feels a little bit full circle because my first visit was at Damian’s investiture. I got to talk to most of you then. So, now it seems like a good time to talk to you one more time.
“Mostly, what I just want to say is what Damian said, which is I am incredibly proud of you, and I am incredibly grateful for the terrific work that you’ve done,” he said.
“Over the past four years, this office has received public recognition, and rightfully so, for incredibly important cases — for disrupting the Sinaloa Cartel, for driving down violent crime, for successful prosecutions of the CEOs of the largest cryptocurrencies in the world, and for relentlessly pursuing public corruption without fear or favor,” the US Attorney General added.
“But this is just a sliver of the work you do, and I wish that the public could see all the rest of the work you do,” he continued. “The stuff that doesn’t make it to the headlines – the day in and day out work that you do; the time you take away from your families; the extraordinarily long days you spend and the risks that we all take. They would be extremely proud of you to see what true patriots all of you are.
“Now I want to say, while I care very much about the work that you do, I care even more about the way in which you do that work,” Garland said. “Yes, you are aggressive prosecutors, aggressive investigators, aggressive attorneys in service of the public. But in everything you do, you do it the right way. You follow the rule of law. You follow the Principles of Federal Prosecution in deciding who you should prosecute and who you shouldn’t prosecute.”
Garland said he may be coming to the end of his tenure at the US Justice Department but added: “I know that all of you will continue. You will continue in the Department’s mission, what has always been its mission: to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights.”
Trump has already announced that he will nominate Jay Clayton, a former corporate lawyer and the top Wall Street enforcer in the first Trump administration, as Williams’s successor.
Clayton has already reportedly pledged to pursue Trump’s quest in seeking revenge against those who prosecuted Trump in New York.
In an announcement on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump described Clayton as “a highly respected business leader, counsel and public servant.”
The US Senate must confirm Clayton as the next US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The Southern District of New York is regarded as one of the most illustrious federal prosecutor’s offices in the United States.
