A week ago, Jay Clayton might have appeared before the House Financial Services Committee and spoken strictly as the leader of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

But on Thursday, at a hearing titled “Capital Markets and Emergency Lending in the COVID-19 Era,” the SEC chairman was forced to address a new title: the Trump administration’s expected nominee to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, replacing the one U.S. Attorney General William Barr fired without any public explanation.