Trump Nominee Confirmed By The Senate
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The Senate has approved Jay Clayton to be the Director of National Intelligence.
The vote was 51 to 47 in favor of Clayton.
He will be replacing the acting DNI head, Bill Pulte.
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Jay Clayton to lead the nation’s intelligence agencies in a party-line vote that could be the key to unlock a path forward on a key surveillance authority that lapsed more than six weeks ago.
The Senate voted 51 to 47 to install Clayton as director of national intelligence. He replaces Bill Pulte, a controversial housing official with no intelligence experience whom President Trump appointed to the role temporarily. The appointment led Democrats to walk away from a bipartisan deal to reauthorize a warrantless spy tool known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“I hope this will encourage my colleagues to stop blocking reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said Monday on the Senate floor.
Democrats initially praised the selection of Clayton, who was until recently the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, to oversee the intelligence community. Mr. Trump announced the pick just hours before Section 702 was set to expire in mid-June, and Republicans moved quickly to confirm him as they tried to break the stalemate on the spy authority. But Mr. Trump upended those plans shortly before he was set to appear for his confirmation hearing last month, surprising Republicans.
Pulte oversaw five waves of firing while he was the director.
Exactly how deep the cuts run is difficult to gauge. Pulte announced on Tuesday a fifth and “near final” round of firings, claiming in a post on X that the dismissals had cumulatively axed “approximately 30%” of staff at the top spy agency; his predecessor Tulsi Gabbard had previously announced that she planned to cut the workforce, then around 2,000 people, by 40%.
…
Even those who support the agency broadly caution against too much hysteria about the depth of the cuts. Some parts of the agency had undeniably grown too big, Casey noted. And many of the people Pulte touted as “firing” were simply returned to their home agencies and remained employed by the federal government, current and former officials said. For some critics, the far deeper concern with Pulte beyond his inexperience was whether he would weaponize the sensitive intelligence he now had access to against the president’s critics. As Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, he helped facilitate mortgage fraud investigations against the president’s top political opponents.
Trump congratulated Clayton, saying he “will do a spectacular job as Director!”
Congratulations to the Great Jay Clayton on his confirmation by the United States Senate, to be the next Director of National Intelligence. Jay is outstanding in every way, and will do a spectacular job as Director! President DONALD J. TRUMP
