Jay Clayton Confirmed as New Director of National Intelligence, Replacing Trump Loyalist Bill Pulte

Jay Clayton has been confirmed as the new Director of National Intelligence after the Senate voted 51 to 47 in favor of the nomination along party lines. Mr. Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, had his confirmation delayed after President Trump demanded that a loyalist be installed in order to look into “rigged elections.”Mr. Clayton was at first viewed by many Democrats as someone who would bring professionalism and counterterrorism experience to the job, given his role as Manhattan’s chief federal prosecutor. He ran afoul of Senate Democrats’ desire to support him once he refused to say if President Biden had, in fact, won the 2020 election. “I’m not gonna do this with you,” an exasperated Mr. Clayton told Senator Jon Ossoff after he was asked who won the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Clayton was asked the same question by multiple senators, and each time he refused to answer. “It seems that folks who are nominated for these positions just, fundamentally, refuse to disagree with something the president says, and the problem I have with this is he isn’t in the room today. You’re gonna be in a room with him many times and at times, you should have a difference of opinion,” Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, said to Mr. Clayton at his confirmation hearing. “If you can’t disagree with him when he’s not in the room, are you gonna be able to disagree with him when you’re sitting across from him in the Oval Office or the Situation Room?”Mr. Clayton was due to be confirmed more than a month ago, as Senate Republicans rushed to outflank Mr. Trump in his attempt to install Bill Pulte — a loyalist bureaucrat behind many investigations into the president’s enemies — as the acting DNI. As the Senate Intelligence Committee was preparing for the confirmation hearing, Mr. Trump announced that he would direct Mr. Clayton to not appear for the hearing. The president said at the time that he would not allow Mr. Clayton’s nomination to proceed until Mr. Clayton’s replacement at the Southern District of New York was confirmed. During his tenure at the DNI’s office, Mr. Pulte has proven himself to be a loyal footsoldier in Mr. Trump’s attempts to prove that he won the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Pulte’s efforts to do so resulted in Mr. Trump delivering a speech earlier this month to decry the fact that individuals in the People’s Republic of China had accessed the personal information of more than 200 million Americans. Mr. Trump used the speech to push for passage of the SAVE America Act — a bill to require proof of citizenship and presentation of photo ID before voting. Aside from searching for information about the 2020 election, Mr. Pulte has been laying off intelligence officers currently headquartered at his office. Many of those layoffs simply entail returning officials to their home agencies, like the CIA or the NSA. On Tuesday, Mr. Pulte announced that nearly one-third of the staff at the DNI’s office had been terminated, though that includes individuals who are going back to native agencies. “We are, this morning, Executing a 5th and Near Final Round of TERMINATIONS, an approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago,” Mr. Pulte wrote on X on Tuesday. “The Intelligence Community must protect the American people, NOT the political whims of the bloated and corrupt elite class.”

Jay Clayton Confirmed as New Director of National Intelligence, Replacing Trump Loyalist Bill Pulte

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