WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, is expected to receive a friendly reception from lawmakers Wednesday at his confirmation hearing, with both parties eager to see him succeed the current acting intelligence chief.
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers Consider Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a relatively safe pair of hands to replace Bill Pulte, a political partisan who came to the job with no clear national security experience.
Senate Intelligence Committee to Hold Confirmation Hearing Amid Growing Concern among Democrats, Trump and his administration could attempt to use intelligence or law enforcement to interfere with state governments’ oversight of the midterm elections in November.
A White House task force assembled thousands of pages of documents intelligence agencies are considering declassifying some of them, giving Trump a potential opportunity to renew his baseless claims about fraud in past elections, NBC News reported.
Trump is is scheduled to deliver a speech Thursday evening this will focus in part on election integrity and his administration’s findings regarding the 2020 election.
Clayton is notably expected to face questions from Democrats about how he views the intelligence director’s role in the U.S. election and whether he would be willing to provide unvarnished assessments to Trump.
He told CNBC last month, the United States “is doing an absolutely terrible job” of ensuring the integrity of elections, “and the American people are right to question it.”
Citing California’s election laws allowing registered voters to vote by mail, Clayton said “it makes the opportunity for fraud much greater, when it doesn’t need to be.”
Election experts and California officials say there is no evidence of widespread fraud in California’s election, as Trump has claimed. And when it comes to the 2020 election, no evidence of widespread fraud has emerged, as Trump has claimed. Dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn election results have been dismissed or dropped.
Congress created the position of national intelligence director following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, with the goal of ensuring that information was shared among the nation’s spy agencies.
The director oversees 18 spy services, intervenes on Secret Service budgets and is the president’s principal intelligence adviser.
Clayton, who spent most of his career as a corporate lawyer, does not have much experience in the world of intelligence. But as a federal prosecutor, he oversaw an office that handles cases with national security implications, including drug trafficking, terrorism and corruption.
As U.S. Attorney, Clayton oversaw the Department of Justice indictment of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for drug trafficking. Maduro has pleaded not guilty.
Clayton’s office also reviewed numerous Justice Department records related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after Congress passed a law requiring disclosure of the documents.
Republican lawmakers are hoping to see Clayton confirmed in an attempt to break a logjam in Congress over expanding the government’s electronic surveillance authority. Democrats have warned they will not support reauthorization of the spy tool unless Pulte is replaced as intelligence chief.
Trump nominated Clayton last month, but then demanded that the Senate Intelligence Committee cancel a confirmation hearing scheduled for June 17 just hours before it was scheduled to take place. He said he first wants Clayton’s successor as federal prosecutor in New York, James McDonald, to be confirmed.
The Senate has yet to confirm McDonald as New York’s powerful prosecutor, but he has been named an assistant U.S. attorney for supervise a “transition” period according to the Department of Justice.
Senior Democrats, who often disagree with the White House over Trump’s nominees, hailed Clayton as a positive, more conventional choice. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, called Clayton “aa competent official» with the right temperament.
Trump chose Pulte as acting director of national intelligence in early June to succeed Tulsi Gabbard after she announced her resignation, citing her husband’s cancer diagnosis.
Pulte won Trump’s endorsement to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he launched investigations about Trump’s perceived political enemies.
Trump has said he wants Pulte to continue downsizing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence before Clayton takes over. While she was director, Gabbard eliminated hundreds of positions and transferred some teams to other intelligence agencies.
