Obama to Pick Prosecutor to Head SEC: Report

Is the SEC about to get tougher? President Obama intends to nominate former US Attorney Mary Jo White to head the organization, sources tell the AP. White spent nearly a decade prosecuting white collar criminals in Manhattan, and has a reputation as a particularly dogged prosecutor of financial fraud cases involving complex securities. She also won convictions related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.

Obama will announce the nomination later this afternoon. At the same event, he'll renominate Richard Cordray to stay on as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Obama originally used a recess appointment to slip Cordray into the job without a Congressional vote, but that appointment expires at the end of this year. (More Mary Jo White stories.)