Jay Clayton is one step closer to becoming President Donald Trump’s spy czar — but he’s shedding Democratic support in the ascent.
The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 9-8 on Tuesday to advance Clayton’s nomination as director of national intelligence to the full chamber. The party-line vote marks a partial setback for Clayton, who was expected to draw broad Democratic support until a contentious confirmation hearing last week. At the hearing, Clayton repeatedly refused to admit that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
The vote nonetheless puts Clayton, a top federal prosecutor and former SEC chair, on the cusp of joining President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Senate Republicans have the votes to confirm Clayton without any Democratic support, though it is not immediately clear when Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) plans to do so.
Democrats are still likely to prefer Clayton over the current acting DNI, Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist with no background in national security. They just aren’t as supportive as they’d seemed previously.
Senate Intelligence Chair Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and ranking Democrat Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) last month agreed to a deal to fast-track Clayton’s confirmation in exchange for Democratic support for a controversial spy law. But Trump derailed the plan at the last minute, directing Clayton not to attend his first scheduled confirmation hearing because he feared Democrats wouldn’t deliver on their end of the deal.
That resulted in the partial expiration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last month, and it is still not clear when the Senate will vote to re-up it next.
So far, Pulte hasn’t implemented the sweeping personnel cuts at ODNI that Democrats feared. But he was involved in discussions around the primetime speech Trump delivered last Thursday, in which the president accused the intelligence community of a “shocking” cover-up on the extent of Chinese meddling in 2020.
A spokesperson for the ODNI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pulte’s role in last week’s speech.
The intelligence documents the White House declassified Thursday fell well short of backing up Trump’s Thursday allegation. They also do not support his longstanding claim his 2020 loss was the result of a rigged election.
Still, Trump’s speech underscored the difficult balancing act Clayton will face if confirmed: between Democrats who are wary Trump will misuse intelligence to justify a power grab over U.S. elections, and a president who remains convinced the “deep state” is out to get him.
Democrats generally view Clayton as more competent and far less of a loose cannon than Pulte, who encouraged mortgage fraud investigations of Trump’s enemies as the head of the government’s federal housing finance regulator.
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