{"id":308801,"date":"2026-07-29T16:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T16:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/308801\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T16:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T16:24:09","slug":"jay-clayton-leaving-post-as-manhattan-u-s-attorney-after-being-confirmed-as-national-intelligence-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/308801\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay Clayton leaving post as Manhattan U.S. Attorney after being confirmed as national intelligence director"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new director of the country\u2019s national intelligence agency, which oversees the U.S.\u2019s spy operations.<\/p>\n

Clayton, whom President Trump nominated to the post, had been the top prosecutor since April 2025 for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), one of the country\u2019s most high-profile and important Department of Justice offices. He called his time in the role an immense privilege.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with the women and men of the SDNY and our partners on behalf of New York families and all Americans to keep them safe from harm, protect their freedoms, and improve their quality of life, has been an immense privilege,\u201d Clayton said in a parting statement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump tapped<\/a> Clayton, a longtime ally, to lead the agency in June after Tulsi Gabbard stepped down<\/a> from the post in May. The president posted\u00a0a message commending Clayton\u2019s confirmation to Truth Social after the U.S. Senate vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations to the Great Jay Clayton on his confirmation by the United States Senate, to be the next Director of National Intelligence,\u201d Trump wrote after Clayton had been confirmed by a 51-47 vote along party lines. \u201cJay is outstanding in every way, and will do a spectacular job as Director!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s replacing Jay Clayton at the SDNY?<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s pick<\/a> to replace Clayton as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan is James McDonald<\/a>, a current Sullivan & Cromwell partner, a white-collar corporate law firm where Clayton also previously worked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McDonald who previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, an enforcement director at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a deputy associate counsel in the White House under President George W. Bush, and as a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts on the U.S. Supreme Court and Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton Jr., on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. McDonald, an alumnus of the Office, is a remarkably accomplished, highly respected, and widely sought after counselor, strategist, and advocate, inside and outside the courtroom,\u201d Clayton said in a statement earlier this month.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Jay Clayton, left, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York at the New York City Bar Association in December, 2025, being interviewed by James M. McDonald, a Sullivan and Cromwell attorney.Rick Kopstein<\/p>\n

In Clayton\u2019s short time heading the office since April 2025, he oversaw the sex trafficking conviction of three New York City real estate brokers known as the Alexander Brothers, some preparation of the case against accused UnitedHealthCare CEO murderer Luigi Mangione, the release of millions of pages of the Epstein files and the prosecution of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n

His stated priorities for the U.S. attorney\u2019s office included cracking down on street crime<\/a>, like gun and fentanyl offenses, an unusual aim for the Manhattan U.S. attorney\u2019s office that\u2019s historically been focused on high-level prosecution, as well as sex trafficking.<\/p>\n

Though some lawmakers raised concerns<\/a> against Clayton\u2019s nomination \u2013 namely, his refusal to state Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and issuing subpoenas against New York Times journalists who reported on security concerns regarding Qatar gifting Trump a new Air Force One plane \u2013 he was a much less eyebrow-raising figure than Trump\u2019s initial pick for the seat, Bill Pute, a controversial<\/a> Trump ally who currently serves as the director of federal housing and had no known national intelligence experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new director…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[28920,2710,75,84,83,102244,9,24,63,87,116816],"class_list":["post-308801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-jay-clayton","tag-law","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-national-intelligence","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-u-s-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308801","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=308801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}