Donald Trump needs a win. And it’s coming fast.
Because Trump is about to be given a huge gift that strikes fear into Democrats.
President Donald Trump’s pick to run the nation’s intelligence agencies cleared a key Senate hurdle Monday night, putting the chamber closer to confirming a new Director of National Intelligence and restarting a vital counterterrorism surveillance tool that Democrats let lapse for the first time in its history.
Clayton Clears Procedural Vote as Thune Blasts Democratic Obstruction
The Senate advanced Jay Clayton through cloture Monday night to become the next Director of National Intelligence, following former DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s sudden exit from the position to care for her cancer-stricken husband. The largely partisan vote to advance Clayton, who previously chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, comes after he narrowly cleared the Senate Intelligence Committee on a 9-8 vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., challenged Democrats to support Clayton in the final confirmation vote, though he expected continued resistance consistent with the party’s treatment of other Trump nominees.
“One might think that we’d be seeing some bipartisanship from Democrats on this nominee,” Thune said. “But Democrats are playing the same partisan games with this qualified nominee as they have for so many of President Trump’s picks.”
“It’s a funny thing because Democrats have made no secret of their disdain for the current acting Director of National Intelligence,” he continued. “In fact, Democrats were so worked up over the president’s temporary choice for this position, they allowed our nation’s most important counterterrorism tool to go dark for the first time ever.”
Democrats’ Obstruction Left Key Spy Program in Limbo
The Senate will hold a final confirmation vote Tuesday, capping an arduous process to replace Gabbard. When she announced her exit, Trump hastily installed Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte to lead the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies in the interim — a move that came just as the Senate was nearing a bipartisan deal to keep Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act running ahead of its expiration.
Democrats, who had railed against Pulte as an unqualified loyalist who would weaponize the intelligence community, walked away from that bipartisan deal after Trump abruptly postponed Clayton’s originally scheduled confirmation hearing. The Section 702 program has since been steadily going dark, leaving new authorizations in a legal void even though the tool has been credited with thwarting deadly terror attacks, including a mass-casualty plot targeting a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, Austria.
Less than 24 hours before Clayton’s committee vote, Pulte announced on X that he had completed a fourth round of layoffs as acting DNI, writing: “Since becoming Acting Director of National Intelligence, our team has been smartly, and carefully, reducing the size of ODNI, re-focusing ODNI on national security, the law, and the statute. As of this evening, we just finished a 4th round of thoughtful, measured layoffs. Thank you!”
Democrats Grilled Clayton on Unrelated Political Matters
Last week, only Republicans on the Intelligence Committee voted to advance Clayton after he failed to satisfy Senate Democrats’ questioning on who won the 2020 election, his knowledge of Gabbard’s raid on Fulton County, Georgia election offices, and subpoenas against New York Times reporters that were submitted by him in his prior role as the top federal prosecutor in New York’s Southern District. Those subpoenas were voluntarily withdrawn by the Justice Department last week, two days after Clayton was confirmed by the panel — clearing the way for his broader confirmation to proceed.
