Exclusive | Trump team weighs Wall Street lawyer Richard Farley as SEC chair candidate: sources
A top lawyer on Wall Street known for his work on leveraged buyouts is being floated as a possible candidate to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission for the Trump administration, The Post has learned.Richard Farley — a partner at New York white-shoe law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel who is chairman of its leveraged finance group — has joined the Trump transition team’s list of possible replacements for current SEC Chair Gary Gensler, sources said.Farley has represented some of the world’s biggest banks on major financing deals in recent years, including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and UBS and financial services companies including Cantor Fitzgerald.In 2017, Farley represented Cantor when it was selling shares in Sorrento Therapeutics, according to Kramer’s website.Cantor CEO Howard Lutnick is helping to lead Trump’s transition team and is in charge of choosing personnel.Farley is also an old friend of Trump backer Robert F.
Kennedy Jr.who is now angling for a cabinet position — and reportedly got a text from RFK Jr.
with five thumbs-up emojis to signal Trump had clinched the White House, Bloomberg reported this week.“It’s over,” Farley said early Wednesday, according to the outlet, which added that he “sounded buoyant.”Farley is still a registered Democrat.But since he married the GOP’s NYC Finance Chairwoman Chivacci “Chele” Farley in 2016, his social media posts have been clearly supportive of Republicans including Trump, sources said.His wife ran unsuccessfully for US Senate in 2018 against Kirsten Gillibrand, and then in 2020 for US Congress.Farley is an SEC historian, having written the 2015 Simon & Schuster book Wall Street Wars: The Epic Battles with Washington That Created the Modern Financial System.In December 2012, he penned a New York Times opinion column arguing that it was time for a “bold choice” for a new SEC chief after President Barack Obama’s White House victory, calling for “a succes...