Obama Nominates Mary Jo White (A Woman!) To Head SEC
At a press conference last week, President Obama warned his critics to “wait until they’ve seen all my appointments… before they rush to judgment.” After weeks of grumbling from the right, left and center that he was unfairly filling his second term cabinet and other high-level staff positions with men, today the president nominated Mary Jo White to chair the Security and Exchange Commission.
While White currently works for the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton where she defends companies accused by the government of white collar crime, she also has the distinction of being the first female U.S. Attorney appointed in Manhattan. As ThinkProgress points out, that would make her the first prosecutor to head the SEC, a job that’s traditionally gone to former Wall Street workers.
Reviewing some highlights from White’s career, Obama said in the official nomination announcement today:
“For over a decade as a U.S. Attorney in New York, she helped prosecute white collar criminals and money launderers. In the early 1990’s, she brought down John Gotti, the head of the Gamino crime scene and she brought down the terrorists responsible for bombing the World Trade Center and the American embassies in Africa. I’d say that’s a pretty good run. You don’t want to mess with Mary Jo. As one former SEC chairman said, ‘Mary Jo does not intimidate easily,’ and that is important because she has a big job ahead of her.”
Watch video below, via C-SPAN:
