All posts tagged "jay clayton"

Outrage after Trump's spychief confirmed along party-line vote: 'GOP should be ashamed'

Democratic lawmakers were furious after the Senate voted to confirm President Donald Trump's nominee Jay Clayton as the new Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday.

Following a party-line 51-47 vote, the Senate approved Clayton to be the nation's top spy chief. Trump picked Clayton to be the permanent DNI following former DNI Tulsi Gabbard announcing her resignation in May. After her exit in June, Acting DNI Bill Pulte was appointed by the president to serve in the interim role.

After the vote, Senate Democrats took a stance and made their positions known on social media.

"I voted against confirming Jay Clayton as President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence. This position must be guided by facts, not conspiracy theories or blind political loyalty. Refusing to acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election is disqualifying for a role responsible for delivering objective intelligence, following the rule of law, and keeping our nation safe," Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) wrote on X.

"I just voted NO on Jay Clayton's nomination to be Director of National Intelligence. Why should someone who can’t acknowledge who won the 2020 election oversee our intelligence agencies?" Sen. Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) wrote on X.

"When the position of the DNI was created by Congress after the 9/11 attacks, the law laid out a simple qualification for the position: that the DNI 'shall have extensive national security expertise.' Jay Clayton fails that foundational, statutory test," Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) wrote on X, sharing a thread with his thoughts on Clayton.

"His record and his answers under oath to the Senate make it clear Clayton is not a leader who can be counted upon to make decisions on the serious national security threats facing our country, if those decisions would bring him into conflict with the personal or political preferences of the President," Schiff added.

"BREAKING: Senate Republicans just confirmed Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence—an election-denier and Trump sycophant. The GOP should be ashamed for enabling Trump’s dangerous and deranged conspiracy theories," Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) wrote on X.

BREAKING: Senate Republicans just confirmed Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence—an election-denier and Trump sycophant.

The GOP should be ashamed for enabling Trump’s dangerous and deranged conspiracy theories. pic.twitter.com/zS0VLkXL0h
— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) July 28, 2026

'Really alarming moment': Trump spy chief's confirmation rattles security expert

A security expert warned that the confirmation of Trump's new spy chief marks a "really alarming moment."

During an appearance on CNN, Paul Rieckhoff said that the confirmation of Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence shows that Trump rewards loyalty above all else. Rieckhoff made the warning as CNN panelists spoke about Trump threatening upcoming elections and as Senate votes came in to confirm Clayton as the new head of America's 18 intelligence agencies.

"Standards don't matter. Competency doesn't matter. Independence doesn't matter. Loyalty matters," Rieckhoff said. "This is a really alarming moment that we shouldn't normalize."

Rieckhoff noted that before former DNI Tulsi Gabbard departed, she opposed Trump's actions like the war in Iran and removing its leader, but she was sent to Georgia to "attack elections on behalf of the FBI." Rieckhoff spoke during the segment in which CNN anchor Erin Burnett noted that Trump has made multiple moves to threaten elections, with Rieckhoff noting that Trump seems to be "telegraphing his punches" ahead of the midterms.

"Now, we've got this guy who's never served in the intelligence community and refuses to accept the elections," Rieckhoff said. "I look at it through the prism of the hundreds of thousands of people in our intelligence community. We are at war with Iran, and Trump wants to attack more places."

Clayton's confirmation "really jeopardizes our national security," Rieckhoff added. He worried that "we're under constant threat in the homeland," and Clayton's "lack of basic competence" doesn't help.

Rieckhoff added that Clayton's confirmation "has our enemies celebrating."

Outgoing Trump spy chief brags about firings that ex-officials call bogus: NYT

The outgoing director of national intelligence spent his last days on the job bragging about unproven firings, per the New York Times.

Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, is expected to be replaced on Tuesday by Jay Clayton after a short-lived stint as President Donald Trump's spy chief. During his last days and hours on the job, Pulte bragged that he reduced staff at the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI), a claim ex-officials doubt, according to reporting by the Times.

The Times noted a "flurry of social media posts" by Pulte. In a Tuesday post on X, he wrote, "We are, this morning, Executing a 5th and near final round of Terminations, an approximately 30 percent Staff Reduction from Weeks ago."

However, Pulte's office provided "no details" about the firings, the Times noted. Several former U.S. intelligence officials told the Times that they don't believe his claims of a reduction.

"The acting DNI has been quick to announce firings and make public claims about them, but has so far declined to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with the information necessary to assess the accuracy of those statements or the basis for those decisions," Rachel Cohen, a spokesperson for Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), told the Times. Warner is the top Democrat on the committee.

Other former officials told the Times that Pulte was counting people who completed their tour of duty at the ODNI and were returning to their home agencies as planned. He also appeared to have been counting unfilled positions at the National Counterterrorism Center and other parts of the ODNI as part of the terminations, per the Times.

'Terrible moment': GOP strategist slams 'chameleon' Jay Clayton's hearing flop

A GOP strategist slammed Trump's pick for national intelligence director and his recent performance at a confirmation hearing.

While speaking on a panel with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins and senior legal analyst Elie Honig, GOP strategist Douglas Heye evaluated one of the comments made by Jay Clayton during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

When asked why former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attended an FBI raid that seized voting records in Georgia, Clayton admitted that the question "just wasn't something that was on my mind before the preparation for this hearing."

"Not a great moment," Heye said. "Not a great moment that we all got to see."

Heye explained that when he helped people prepare to testify before Congress, he advised people to think about "how are we going to limit as much damage as possible?" Clayton had to keep in mind that he also had to impress Trump and remember that "Donald Trump could sweep the leg out from under you, and your nomination is over," Heye explained.

"Terrible moment to be a witness and not be able to answer those sorts of fundamental questions," Heye said. "But the audience is the president, and you want the president's support. You're going to contort yourself however you can."

Honig, who was a prosecutor at the Southern District of New York before Clayton took it over, spoke to the reputation that Clayton had in that regard.

"The reputation of Jay Clayton is that he's a chameleon," Honig said. "He goes by to get by. He goes along to get along, and he lacks the backbone to stand up for that office."

'They pressed him': Analyst flags 'pretty extraordinary' moment from Jay Clayton hearing

An analyst on Wednesday described a significant moment at the Senate confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump's Director of National Intelligence nominee, Jay Clayton.

CNN correspondent Brian Todd told CNN anchor Jake Tapper about Clayton's refusal to answer questions about who won the 2020 election and his response to former DNI Tulsi Gabbard at the FBI raids at the Fulton County election offices.

"They pressed him, Jake, on Tulsi Gabbard's visit to Georgia this past January that was just so controversial, widely reported," Todd said. "But in a pretty extraordinary exchange, Jay Clayton claimed to know little or nothing about that trip."

"The first time you learned that Director Gabbard was present at that raid was in my office yesterday?" Ossoff asked.

"It was the first time that, in my recollection, I've thought about it recently. Now, was I aware of it before?" Clayton said.

Ossoff interjected, saying, "What?"

"Your answers lack credibility," Ossoff added.

Warner pressed Clayton to respond.

"Now, if even if you weren't aware, in preparation for this hearing, I would have thought, 'Hey, we got to be ready for the Gabbard questions," Warner said.

But Clayton disagreed.

"Look, I don't want to. It just wasn't something that was on my mind before the preparation for this hearing," Clayton said.

Republicans flummoxed by Trump 'throwing a grenade' into latest nomination fight

President Donald Trump's order to halt the nomination process for director of national intelligence sent Republican lawmakers scrambling on Wednesday, according to CNN.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) announced just an hour before Jay Clayton, Trump's pick for the job, was set to testify before the Senate confirmation hearing that it was being postponed after the president told Clayton not to show up, CNN anchor Brianna Keilar reported.

"The president is accusing lawmakers of moving too fast to confirm Clayton, and he's vowing to hold up a critical spying measure, FISA reauthorization, unless a separate voter ID measure, separate and unrelated, by the way, is attached to it," Keilar explained.

CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox described the whiplash among the GOP leaders.

"A lot of frustration from some Senate Republicans up here on Capitol Hill, in part because they really believe that they were on a fast track to approving Jay Clayton to be the next DNI at a moment where many Republicans, as well as Democrats, were worried about Bill Pulte, who Trump had selected to be his acting DNI, stepping into that role," Fox said.

"So right now, Republicans are a little bit flummoxed because they believe that they had been working in good faith with Democrats," Fox said.

"They had been getting signals that Democrats were willing to try to move this nomination as expeditiously as possible," Fox said. "And then you just had Donald Trump, as one member put it, throwing a grenade into this entire process by saying on Truth Social in the wee hours of the morning, while many senators were sleeping, that he did not believe that Jay Clayton's nomination should go forward today before the Senate Intelligence Committee a couple hours later, you had Senator Tom Cotton, who is the top Republican on that committee, making clear that he wanted to continue having this hearing unless he got word that Donald Trump didn't want Clayton coming before the committee later today. Well, clearly he got that word because a couple hours later, Cotton made clear that he was disappointed, but that they were going to be postponing this confirmation hearing."

Trump was pushing the demands forward for a key reason, Fox explained.

"Those two things are unrelated, and I would just point out that there isn't support, even among Republicans in the Senate, for that voter ID law on its own," Fox added. "It would need 60 votes in the Senate. It doesn't even have enough Republican support to get a majority of the vote. So a lot of Republicans are just shaking their head right now, feeling like they were on a fast track to getting Jay Clayton to serve as DNI, someone who's popular, someone who a lot of Republicans have worked with in the past. Now they are basically starting back at zero."

'This is a capitulation': CNN reporter taken aback by Trump's DNI nomination

CNN's Alayna Treene could barely contain her surprise Thursday when Donald Trump reversed course on his intelligence chief pick just hours after FISA died in the House.

Trump announced he was nominating former SEC chairman Jay Clayton as the permanent director of national intelligence on Truth Social, hours after a House vote to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act failed 198-218. The program is set to expire Friday — though intelligence agencies may continue operating under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court recertification through March 2027.

The whiplash was stunning: days earlier, Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) in a meeting that he would not give in on acting DNI Bill Pulte. The next morning, he posted that Pulte would begin on June 19.

"There's no other way to say this — this is a capitulation," Treene said live from the White House.

Treene explained that the backlash against Pulte — a housing official with zero intelligence background — had been ferocious and bipartisan. Trump had installed him, she reported, with a short-term agenda: shrink the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, purge perceived disloyalists, and dig into documents related to the 2020 election.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called for the Pulte appointment to be "reversed immediately," saying Trump had "tossed a hand grenade into those sensitive negotiations" over FISA reauthorization. Democrats drew a hard line: no new DNI, no FISA votes.

Pulte spent nine days as Trump's designee — his scheduled start date was still a week away when Clayton's nomination landed.

Clayton, who chaired the SEC during Trump's first term and currently serves as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is a credentialed and confirmable pick — the kind Democrats might accept to revive FISA. Trump's Truth Social post did not mention Pulte.

Trump snubs Bill Pulte for permanent DNI — and selects new pick with his own baggage

President Donald Trump announced his nominee to be the next director of national intelligence on Thursday, snubbing Bill Pulte, who had been placed in the position as the acting director.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he was nominating "highly respected Jay Clayton, former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the former Head of Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the most prominent and successful Law Firms anywhere in the World, and the current United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be the next Director of National Intelligence and, importantly, to serve in my Cabinet."

"Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay. I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible," Trump wrote.

Former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reportedly received a call from Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, essentially telling her Trump was firing her. The move came as a shock to Gabbard.

Trump's decision to place Pulte in the temporary role has led to criticism, even among conservatives, as Pulte has no experience in national security and a track record of abusing his office to go after the president's political enemies.

Clayton has defended Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund and has raised unfounded fraud concerns around the California elections. He has also said that Trump was wronged in criminal prosecutions against him.

Trump's top Manhattan prosecutor unnerves legal experts with his cable TV habit

The top Manhattan prosecutor in Trump's Department of Justice is alarming legal experts with his behavior.

During a recent interview, Adam Klasfeld raised red flags over Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, because of his constant appearances on CNBC. Clayton "sowed doubt" over the California elections, but that wasn't all the stunned Klasfeld, who's been a court reporter for the past two decades.

"I have never seen a U.S. attorney engage in political commentary on cable, period," Klasfeld said. "And he is now a regular fixture, Jay Clayton, on Squawk Box on CNBC, where he spouts off pro-Trump talking points regularly."

In addition to bringing up unfounded fraud concerns around the California elections, Clayton has also talked about how Trump was wronged in criminal prosecutions against him, defended the $1.776 billion slush fund, and engaged in "soft election denialism," Klasfeld said.

Michael Popok, a former prosecutor and the host of Legal AF, added to Klasfeld's observations. Popok noted that Clayton "is a very close friend and always has been with Howard Lutnick," Trump's commerce secretary, who's been questioned about his ties to Epstein.

Clayton is also a "golfing buddy" with Lutnick and Trump, according to Popok, adding that his purpose is to make the Southern District of New York look good under Trump.

"When you see him on television, he looks like he's from central casting," Popok said about Clayton. "His sole purpose is to give a veneer of credibility, and to restore some credibility to that office while continuing to be a political hatchet man."

THE POPOK POP-UP: BREAKING NEWS AND ADAM KLASFELD, TOO! by Legal AF

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