By Jonathan Landay and Erin Banco<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) \u2013 President Donald Trump said on Thursday he is nominating Jay Clayton, the top U.S. attorney for Manhattan, to be the next U.S. spy chief in an apparent bid to quell a political firestorm over his pick to fill the \u200brole temporarily.<\/p>\n
The decision, however, appeared unlikely to end a refusal by Democrats to provide the votes \u200cneeded to renew a key foreign surveillance program that expires on Friday unless Trump withdraws Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief. Pulte is a fierce Trump loyalist with no national security experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cPulte has to go. He cannot be in the DNI role. Our national security is too important,\u201d Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader from New York, told reporters, referring to the director of national intelligence.<\/p>\n
Trump \u200cannounced \u200bhis choice of Clayton for permanent DNI in a Truth Social post in \u2060which he urged quick Senate confirmation \u2060of Clayton to replace Tulsi Gabbard as overseer of the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters, Trump stressed that Pulte would not remain in the position for long.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s only there for a little while, he\u2019s running it for a short while, while we get a very talented person, Jay Clayton,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Clayton is \u200ba former lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell who specialized in mergers and capital raising. During Trump\u2019s first term, he served as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he developed a reputation as a political \u2060moderate who tried to forge consensus with the agency\u2019s Democratic commissioners.<\/p>\n
Trump \u2060in April 2025 nominated Clayton to serve as interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern \u200bDistrict of New York, considered one of the most powerful prosecutorial posts in the country.<\/p>\n
His official biography shows that \u200bhe has no intelligence background and lacks extensive national security experience, a requirement of the \u200claw that created the post of DNI after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.<\/p>\n
RECOMMENDED BY THE CIA DIRECTOR<\/p>\n
A person familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters, said that CIA Director John Ratcliffe recommended Clayton to Trump as Gabbard\u2019s permanent replacement after the president asked him who should take over \u2060from her.<\/p>\n
Until Clayton is confirmed, Pulte will lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and oversee personnel cuts that Trump has called for, the person said.<\/p>\n
Many lawmakers greeted Trump\u2019s announcement with praise for Clayton. But top Democrats said \u2060they would continue refusing to provide \u200cthe votes needed to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act unless \u2060Trump withdrew Pulte as acting DNI.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the Senate can take up a FISA \u200bextension there \u200cneeds to be a clear guarantee that Mr. Pulte will not serve as \u200bacting DNI,\u201d said \u2060Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee from Virginia, who called Clayton \u201ca capable public servant.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday rejected a short-term extension of Section 702 that Trump has sought.<\/p>\n
Trump said Pulte, the head of the federal housing agency, would take over as acting director on June 19 to replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned effective June 30.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Erin Banco, David Morgan, Daphne Psaledakis, Katharine Jackson; Editing by Don Durfee, \u200bChizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jonathan Landay and Erin Banco WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) \u2013 President Donald Trump said on Thursday he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-264166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}