Amid unprecedented bipartisan backlash, President Donald Trump ditched his original nomination for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Thursday and named a new replacement – an announcement that's sparked “Trump-induced chaos” for Senate GOP leaders, Punchbowl News reported Friday.
“As always, the timing around here matters,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), according to Punchbowl News. “It would have been nice if we had had this a couple of days earlier.”
The announcement came just hours before Congress members left town for recess.
Current DNI Tulsi Gabbard announced her resignation last month and is poised to leave the Trump administration next week. Trump initially nominated his own Federal Housing Finance Agency director, Bill Pulte, to fill the role, despite him having no prior intelligence or national security experience. The announcement was met with fierce pushback, with Democrats pointing to Pulte’s history of targeting Trump’s adversaries with accusations of mortgage fraud.
Trump’s nomination of Pulte prompted Democrats to sink what was previously a bipartisan bill to extend a surveillance program that permits national intelligence agencies to surveil overseas communications without warrant, including those of Americans.
On Friday, Trump shocked with a replacement nominee, Jay Clayton, who has received bipartisan praise. But his nomination came too late to rescue the bill designed to extend the surveillance program, which is now set to go dark Friday night.
“President Donald Trump showed again on Thursday that he’s not done messing with Senate Republicans, choosing the worst possible time to take action on something GOP leaders spent several days pleading for. Yet the next two weeks could be even worse,” Punchbowl News’ report reads.
“Trump finally announced his new nominee for director of national intelligence on Thursday afternoon… But it came after the House had already left town for a weeklong recess and the Senate was minutes away from closing out its business for the week. Senate Republican leaders aren’t hiding their frustrations with Trump’s moves.”