{"id":709744,"date":"2026-06-17T15:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/709744\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T15:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:48:08","slug":"trump-derails-confirmation-process-for-jay-clayton-as-us-intelligence-chief-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/709744\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump derails confirmation process for Jay Clayton as US intelligence chief | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> abruptly diverted the confirmation process for Jay Clayton as the US\u2019s top intelligence chief early Wednesday, in a move that will allow the US president\u2019s controversial selection for acting director of national security, Bill Pulte, to assume the role and remain in place for at least several weeks until Clayton is confirmed.<\/p>\n

Trump pushed the Senate to confirm Clayton after his appointment of Pulte as acting director sparked bipartisan pushback and stalled his administration\u2019s push for renewal of the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa).<\/p>\n

Democrats and some Republicans have decried Pulte\u2019s nomination, saying that his background as the chair of a federal mortgage regulation agency is insufficient to lead America\u2019s intelligence community.<\/p>\n

In a surprising post<\/a> on Truth Social in the early morning hours on Wednesday, Trump declared: \u201cwe are cancelling the Senate Hearing RE: DNI Today\u201d. The president does not technically have the power to cancel a Senate hearing. Tom Cotton, a senator and chair of the intelligence committee, said<\/a> on X Wednesday morning: \u201cWe will proceed with his hearing as scheduled unless the president directs [Clayton] not to appear or withdraws his nomination.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump said that Republicans had rushed the Clayton nomination so quickly that \u201cPulte would be gone before the Dumocrats would vote on FISA\u201d, using his common derogatory term for Democrats.<\/p>\n

He also said he wanted to see Clayton\u2019s replacement as US attorney completed before Clayton became the director of national intelligence, and further complicated the situation by asserting he did not want the surveillance act approved unless it included the Save America Act, a controversial<\/a> and restrictive voting bill.<\/p>\n

Tulsi Gabbard resigned late last month <\/a>as director of national intelligence, which oversees 18 US spy agencies. Pulte could become acting director as soon as this week.<\/p>\n

Like Pulte and Gabbard, Clayton has thin credentials<\/a> for America\u2019s top intelligence job. He served as the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during Trump\u2019s first term and made millions working as a Wall Street attorney in the decades prior to his 2017 SEC post.<\/p>\n

But like Trump\u2019s other appointees, Clayton has also demonstrated unwavering support for Trump and his agenda \u2013 including his conspiracies of election fraud.<\/p>\n

On CNBC on 8 June<\/a>, during a conversation about allegations of fraud in the California elections, Clayton said of election integrity: \u201cWe\u2019re doing an absolutely terrible job, and the American people are right to question it.\u201d Trump has called<\/a> the elections \u201crigged\u201d, while presenting no evidence to support the allegations.<\/p>\n

He also said California\u2019s mail-voting laws, which include sending mail ballots to all voters and a grace period for ballots to arrive after election day, created an \u201copportunity for fraud\u201d.<\/p>\n

If eventually confirmed, Clayton could continue Gabbard\u2019s unprecedented efforts<\/a> to investigate cases of election interference that could account for Trump\u2019s 2020 loss. During her tenure as DNI, Gabbard inexplicably appeared at an FBI raid on an election facility in Fulton county, Georgia, and authorized the seizure of voting machines<\/a> in Puerto Rico that conspiracists have alleged to be rigged<\/a> by Venezuela\u2019s previous president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, and his deceased predecessor, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. (Clayton signed off on the indictment against Maduro.)<\/p>\n

Many Democrats and Republicans have praised Clayton\u2019s nomination. Jim Himes, the Democratic ranking member of the House intelligence committee, said that<\/a> Clayton\u2019s \u201ctemperament and deep commitment to public service will make him a terrific DNI\u201d. Republican Thom Tillis called Clayton an \u201coutstanding choice\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, has said that the only \u201cpath out\u201d<\/a> to extending section 207, the surveillance act, would be to have Gabbard, or her deputy Aaron Lukas, step in to guide the agency until a permanent chief is confirmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump abruptly diverted the confirmation process for Jay Clayton as the US\u2019s top intelligence chief early Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-709744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}