In 2017, Donald Trump appointed private-equity lawyer Jay Clayton as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), one of the agencies that is responsible for policing the financial industry. Soon after getting the job — and only a few years after the SEC fined major private equity firms for bilking investors — Clayton was pushing to change federal law to let asset managers funnel more money from retirees to those high-risk, high-fee firms.

Clayton finally got his way last week when the Trump administration issued a letter letting 401(k) plans move the savings of 100 million workers and retirees to private equity billionaires, some of whom have been among big donors to Donald Trump’s political machine. Clayton publicly celebrated the change, insisting it “will provide our long-term Main Street investors with a choice of professionally managed funds” that would benefit workers and retirees.

But in a stunning move yesterday, Clayton’s law enforcement agency effectively blew the whistle on its own chairman, issuing a scathing report documenting a private equity crime spree that is fleecing pension funds, university endowments, and other investors.