Trump picks Wall Street lawyer to head Securities and Exchange Commission

Already, Donald Trump has chosen former Goldman Sachs partner and the founder of a hedge fund Steven Mnuchin to be his Secretary of the Treasury; has chosen billionaire investor Wilbur Ross to be his Commerce Secretary; has chosen Wall Street billionaire Carl Icahn to be his regulatory czar; and has chosen Goldman Sachs’ Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn as his direcor of the National Economic Council.

And now, according to Trump spokesperson Sean Spicer, Trump will nominate Wall Street lawyer Jay Clayton to head the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

As chair of the SEC, which polices Wall Street and the financial markets, Clayton would play a key role in Trump’s efforts to usher in a period of deregulation, including undoing parts of 2010’s financial reform legislation, known as the Dodd-Frank Act.

…Trump will be able to fill two [additional] openings on the five-member SEC commission. Together, the openings should give the Trump administration wide latitude to change the way Wall Street is regulated.

Deregulating Wall Street is but one part of Trump’s comprehensive deregulation plan, but it is a particularly dangerous part, as rolling back regulations on the financial industry risks another major financial crisis.

Of course, Trump would not be expected to see that as a bad thing, given that he has bragged about his ability to exploit economic crashes for personal financial gain.

Whether deregulating the financial industry under Clayton’s leadership ends up being a windfall for Trump, it will certainly be bad for the average American. Any voter who cast their lot in with Trump on the basis of “economic anxiety” has a lot to regret already, with more regret to come.

He is not so much “draining the swamp” as he is using it as his own personal luxury spa.