Trump Names New Finance Officials

The Trump administration unveiled a slew of new appointees on Tuesday, and a few of them could challenge the provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act.

In a statement, President Donald Trump announced that he’d chosen James Donovan to serve as Treasury deputy secretary.

The president also hailed the Senate’s decision to confirm J. Christopher Giancarlo for chairman for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a crucial regulatory agency.

Donovan, a law professor with the University of Virginia, comes to the role a degree in chemical engineering and a master’s in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Donovan’s career includes a stint with Goldman Sachs, where he worked on corporate strategy and investment banking. He teaches classes on law and finance at the University of Virginia.

Giancarlo previously served as acting chairman of the agency he now takes over. Before that, he had a role as EVP for the financial-services firm GFI Group, Inc.

The new CFTC chairman also served as a corporate partner in the New York-based law firm Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner. He earned his undergraduate degree in government from Skidmore College and a law degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Law.

Stories published in the New York Times Tuesday suggested that the picks would mean a more significant rollback for the financial-reform law Dodd-Frank.

A Times DealBook story noted that Donovan makes the fourth Goldman Sachs veteran to come to the Trump administration, and reported that the distinction initially gave the president and cabinet officials pause over his hire.

A separate one with the Times called Giancarlo a conservative choice with past statements that indicate he would go after certain provisions in Dodd-Frank.

“I believe in the power of markets to be somewhat self-correcting, but I also truly believe in regulation and the role of regulators,” the news publication quoted Giancarlo as saying in a recent interview.

“Taken together, the appointments and the executive action suggest that Mr. Trump, despite having struck a populist tone during the campaign, is working to accommodate Wall Street and other large corporations,” Times reporter Ben Protess observed in his story.