You've probably noticed that President Trump's nominations for almost any position have met stiff opposition from Trump Derangement Syndrome-raddled Democrats, and this latest one won't be any exception; nevertheless, progress is being made. Jay Clayton, President Trump's nominee to replace Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, has cleared one Senate hurdle on the way to confirmation.
President Donald Trump’s pick to run the nation’s intelligence agencies is one step closer to clinching the job, and puts the Senate ever-closer to jump-starting a key counter-terrorism tool in the process.
The Senate advanced Jay Clayton through a key hurdle Monday night to be the next Director of National Intelligence (DNI). It comes after former DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s sudden exit from the position to care for her cancer-stricken husband.
The largely partisan vote to move Clayton, who formerly chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during Trump’s first term, comes after he narrowly squeaked out the Senate Intelligence Committee on a 9 to 8 vote.
The nomination moves to a full Senate vote, where Democrats will almost certainly and reflexively oppose the nomination.
The counter-terrorism tool described, FISA section 702, is a program authorizing the United States federal intelligence agencies to gather intelligence on non-Americans outside the United States.
The Section 702 program has since been steadily going dark, with new authorizations caught in a legal void until lawmakers reauthorize the program that has been used to thwart deadly terror attacks, including halting a mass-casualty terror plot at a Taylor Swift show in Vienna, Austria.
The Senate vote is scheduled for Tuesday.
The section 702 program had been about to expire when the former DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, resigned suddenly to care for her husband after his cancer diagnosis. The Senate's vote re-authorizing the measure has been stalled.
Following the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump had installed Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte as acting director. Pulte, while in the position, oversaw four rounds of layoffs, but was accused by Democrats of being a Trump loyalist who would weaponize the national security apparatus. That's an interesting assertion about a man who is a registered independent, but there you are - par for the course for Democrats these days.
Jay Clayton previously served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Before that, he clerked for Judge Marvin Katz of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, then was in private legal practice until he took up the SEC role in 2017. He has also been an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he taught a class on mergers and acquisitions - an interesting background for someone proposed to be, in effect, the nation's spymaster.
As DNI, Clayton would have control of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as well as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and nine Department of War elements, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency.
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