Jay Clayton, President Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence, testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, one month after Trump ordered him not to appear at his first confirmation hearing.
Confirming the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York would remove acting director Bill Pulte, whom Trump installed on June 19, and could restart negotiations over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the warrantless-surveillance authority that lapsed after Senate Democrats refused to renew it while Pulte held the job.
What derailed the first hearing
Trump killed the original mid-June hearing hours before it began, writing on Truth Social that Democrats had "broke the deal" on FISA and that Clayton's nomination would not go forward until his replacement in Manhattan, James McDonald, was confirmed. Trump also demanded that Republicans tie the SAVE America Act, a voter-citizenship bill, to any FISA renewal. "Not complicated, actually, the Republicans fell into a trap," Trump said at the time. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton of Arkansas called it "regrettable that the president has directed Jay Clayton not to appear at his confirmation hearing." McDonald has not been confirmed but has been designated deputy U.S. attorney to run the Manhattan office during the transition, the Justice Department said.
Clayton's record
Clayton chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term and spent most of his career at Sullivan & Cromwell, the firm now representing Trump in appeals of his criminal conviction and a New York civil-fraud judgment. As U.S. attorney in Manhattan, he oversaw the Justice Department's drug-trafficking indictment of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and directed his office's review of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. He has no intelligence-agency experience. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the committee's top Democrat, has called Clayton "a capable public servant" with the right temperament.
Elections and a grand jury
Democrats plan to press Clayton on comments he made to CNBC on June 8, when he said the United States is "doing an absolutely terrible job" of ensuring election integrity and that "the American people are right to question it." He described California's practice of mailing ballots to all registered voters as creating an "opportunity for fraud." State officials and election experts say there is no evidence of widespread fraud in California. Clayton's office last week subpoenaed three New York Times journalists over the newspaper's reporting on security features missing from the Qatar-donated Air Force One; the reporters have been ordered to testify before a Manhattan federal grand jury the same morning Clayton faces the intelligence panel.
The pushback
Republicans on the committee frame the delay as a pause in a nomination the White House still wants. Cotton posted on X that Clayton is "a patriot and highly qualified nominee." Fox News noted that several Democrats still serving in the Senate voted to confirm Clayton as SEC chair. The Guardian described Clayton's credentials for the intelligence job as "thin" and pointed to his "unwavering support" for Trump's election-fraud claims.
Trump is scheduled to deliver televised remarks Thursday evening on what the White House calls foreign intervention in U.S. elections, an appearance NBC News reported will draw on documents assembled by a White House task force from the 18 intelligence agencies Clayton would oversee.