PANews reported on October 7 that according to Politico, a dozen former senior regulators, lobbyists and securities lawyers said that if Donald Trump wins the presidency again, Robinhood Chief Legal Officer Dan Gallagher will become the leading candidate for Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is not clear whether Gallagher wants to leave Robinhood. Gallagher said that he loves his job and "I am honored to be mentioned in the discussion about who will be the next chairman of the SEC." But there is no doubt that Gallagher has obvious objections to the direction of the SEC. He said that if he had been chairman in the past few years, there would have been tailor-made rules long ago, as the industry has long sought, to provide cryptocurrency exchanges and brokers with "at least a basic registration system for the way forward." Even so, Gallagher believes that legislation is still needed.
Gallagher is a former member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and is known for his affability and political skills. Other potential SEC chair candidates circulating on Wall Street under the Trump administration include former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Chris Giancarlo, known online as "CryptoDad"; former SEC general counsel Robert Stebbins, now Willkie Partner at the law firm Farr & Gallagher; and current SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who holds a Republican seat on the agencyâs five-member committee. However, reports say that for some Republicans, whether Gallagher can serve as chairman has always been a matter of when, not if.