President Trump on Thursday nominated U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, teeing up the Senate confirmation process to permanently replace departing DNI Tulsi Gabbard amid bipartisan uproar over his temporary pick.
The president’s announcement of Mr. Clayton’s nomination for DNI came hours after the House rejected reauthorization of a key surveillance law over dissatisfaction with his choice of Federal Housing Finance Agency director William J. Pulte to serve as acting DNI.
In a Thursday social media post announcing his pick, Mr. Trump cited the background of Mr. Clayton, who is top federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Clayton is also the former head of Sullivan & Cromwell, what the president called “one of the most prominent and successful Law Firms anywhere in the World,” and the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay,” Mr. Trump posted. “I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said he will try to get Mr. Clayton confirmed “as quickly as possible.”
“He has a great reputation as being an incredibly competent manager, so much so that the Southern District, the judges up there put him in, even when he couldn’t get past the blue slip process,” he said.
Mr. Thune said Mr. Clayton’s nomination could help dislodge Democrats’ opposition to extending the foreign surveillance law in protest of Mr. Pulte.
“I hope that would help,” he said. “I think he’s considered to be a very qualified professional with a great skill set for managing a complex problem set.”
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that he has “known and respected Jay Clayton for many years and believe he is a capable public servant.”
“At the same time, the timing of this announcement raises an obvious question: if the president intended to nominate Mr. Clayton, why spend the last ten days insisting that the Intelligence Community be led by an acting director who lacks the extensive national security experience required by statute and whose appointment raises serious concerns about the politicization of intelligence? The president could have put forward a qualified nominee from the beginning,” the Virginia Democrat said in a statement to The Washington Times.
Instead, Mr. Warner said, the president “waited until the House of Representatives went out of town, choosing a path that raises the risk of an entirely avoidable lapse in a critical national security tool.”
Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said the nomination doesn’t solve the problem of Mr. Pulte taking over the office on June 19. “It doesn’t matter what else they do. Pulte’s got to be gone. He’s still in that role,” he said.
The White House views Mr. Pulte’s role as a short-term job to downsize the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He is to step in June 19 for the embattled Ms. Gabbard, who said she is leaving due to her husband’s cancer treatment.
Democrats say Mr. Pulte lacks the national security credentials to serve as acting DNI.
The appointment scrambled months-long congressional negotiations to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, throwing the future of the communications surveillance capabilities into limbo. The House defeated a proposal Thursday to extend the current law until July 2, and Democrats blocked an identical extension in the Senate.
During his tenure as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Mr. Pulte was accused by Democrats of using his platform and agency power to broadcast accusations of mortgage fraud against Mr. Trump’s perceived opponents, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook.
Mr. Trump publicly stated that, in addition to downsizing agencies, Mr. Pulte “may find out some things about the rigged elections,” raising more Democratic alarms that he would use the intelligence community for political objectives.
— Kerry Picket contributed to this report.
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