The Senate intelligence committee postponed its confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, after the president upended the committee’s proceedings earlier Wednesday.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the committee chairman, wrote in a post on X that it was “regrettable” that Trump directed Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, not to appear before lawmakers. The president surprised senators when he called off the hearing in the middle of the night, demanding in a Truth Social post that the chamber approve a replacement for Clayton first.
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“Mr. Clayton is a patriot and a highly qualified nominee, as the president has said repeatedly,” Cotton wrote. “While today’s hearing is now unfortunately postponed, I look forward to proceeding with his confirmation in the near future.”
Cotton injected uncertainty into the timing of the hearing when he signaled it would still continue as planned, but ultimately pulled back as it became clear Clayton would not attend.
Clayton was originally set to appear before the committee at 2 p.m. Wednesday, and his confirmation was seen as an offramp to renewing a federal spy program that expired last week. Democrats were refusing to vote for a three-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until Trump withdrew his temporary appointment of top housing official Bill Pulte to the DNI post.
Complicating matters, Trump made his own demand Wednesday: that Jamie McDonald be approved as the next U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before Clayton’s confirmation proceeds. The White House has not yet sent McDonald’s nomination to the Senate for consideration, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters that the Senate would take Clayton’s nomination “a day at a time until we get more clarity on kind of what the White House position is on this.”
When asked by reporters during a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi how long Pulte will serve as acting DNI, Trump said, “As long as it takes to get everybody else approved.”
“It was a rush act by the Democrats,” Trump said. “Why are they afraid of this guy? I mean, they’re so afraid of him, they’ll do anything not to have Pulte go in there. He’s a very capable guy, and they’re worried about that.”
Republicans hoped to fast-track Clayton’s confirmation in order to appease Democrats, who feel Pulte is too loyal to the president. But Trump’s post derailed that timeline and, with it, any hope that Section 702 can be renewed. The program allows warrantless surveillance abroad.
Alongside Trump’s demand that McDonald be confirmed, the president has demanded that any extension of Section 702 include the voter ID legislation known as the SAVE America Act.
“The Republicans moved so fast with the hearings of the Great Jay Clayton, current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, that Pulte would be gone before the Dumocrats would vote on FISA,” Trump wrote in his post.
TRUMP GIVES REPUBLICANS NEW FISA HEADACHE WITH SAVE AMERICA ACT DEMAND
The president said that to add “a slight bit of intrigue,” he will “not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it.”
“Not complicated, actually, the Republicans fell into a trap,” Trump wrote.
Ramsey Touchberry, David Sivak, and Mabinty Quarshie contributed to this report.
