SDNY boss Jay Clayton details push to tackle NYC street crime – and how he earned recent attaboy from Trump

Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton is throwing resources toward tackling violent street crime in the Big Apple, he told The Post Wednesday — and he’s already gotten a kudos from President Trump for the office’s crackdown on Washington Square Park.

Clayton, who was appointed to run the powerful Southern District of New York by Trump in April, revealed he plans to bring more cases involving drugs, guns and violence in federal court — where the odds of getting suspects locked up pending trial are higher due to tougher laws.

“Violent crime on the streets of New York City and the rest of the district is what we are keenly focused on,” Clayton said in an interview, when asked about his top priorities helming the key Department of Justice post.

Clayton sat for an interview minutes after holding a press conference announcing the busts of 12 alleged narcotics peddlers for brazenly running an open-air drug market at an East Harlem public housing project for more than three years.

His office is seeking pre-trial detention for the suspects — and already convinced federal judges to lock up more than a dozen people accused of hawking similarly dangerous drugs in and around Washington Square Park, with that case pending, court records show.

The sweeping busts at the famed Greenwich Village greenspace in October earned him congratulations from the president, who told him “Great job!” in a brief phone call, Clayton, who served as SEC director during Trump’s first term, told The Post.

A source close to Trump, who has played golf with Clayton several times over the years at his Bedminster, New Jersey course, confirmed that the call took place.

Clayton said Wednesday that part of the strategy to tackle street crime cases federally is to increase the odds of a suspect being detained while their case is pending, and for the allegations to actually make it to trial, compared to in state court.

Federal judges are allowed to take community safety into account when setting bail, while jurists in New York state are only allowed by law to consider someone’s risk of flight in many bail-eligible cases.

“We have to believe that people are innocent until proven guilty, but there are many circumstances where a pretrial detention decision in the affirmative is the right way to go for society,” Clayton said.

“We know from studies that when you have a repeat violent offender, continuous custody is the thing that reduces crime most,” Clayton added.

Prison reform advocates have contested that argument, citing data showing an increase in recidivism for suspects who spend time in jail.

Clayton still plans to continue investigating cases involving other issues in SDNY’s purview such as sex trafficking and public corruption, he said.

He declined to comment when asked about the infamously abandoned bribery case against outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, which sparked the departure of several of the office’s veteran corruption prosecutors.

When asked whether his bar for bringing corruption cases was higher than under his Democrat-appointed predecessor, Damian Williams, Clayton said: “My bar is to bring the cases that New Yorkers want.”

“We should bring the public corruption cases that New Yorkers want us to bring,” he said broadly.

“That’s what I ask the line prosecutors when they say, ‘Here’s where we are.’ I say, ‘is this a case New Yorkers would want us to bring?'”

Clayton stressed several times during the half-hour sit-down that going after the deadly fentanyl scourge and violent street crime was a top priority.

“I have limited resources. In what various ways can I deploy them to have the most positive impact for New Yorkers?” he said.

“Fentanyl is clearly one. Fentanyl is a big risk. Street crime is not just a big risk, but it has ripple effects throughout the community,” Clayton said.

“If New York doesn’t feel safe, tourism goes down, people don’t want to live here, companies don’t want to have their employees here.”

Clayton was also given the high-profile task by US Attorney Pam Bondi in November — at Trump’s public urging — to handle a new probe of dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s links to Democratic bigwigs and institutions like JP Morgan Chase.

He declined to comment Wednesday when asked if his office had taken any investigative steps or assigned any prosecutors in response to Bondi’s order.

Clayton also didn’t comment on Trump’s pardoning of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a 2024 case brought by SDNY of enabling drug traffickers to smuggle tons of cocaine into the US.

“Pardon power is absolutely the president’s power to exercise, in any way, she or he sees it,” he said. “That’s our Constitution.”

— Additional reporting by Steven Nelson