The DNI Debacle
Trump scuttles Clayton pick & surveillance law in effort to pressure Congress to enact voting hurdles
Take a seat, Jay Clayton, your flight is delayed. Mr. Pulte, we’re ready for you to board.
And so it went at Zero-Dark-30 Wednesday when President Trump announced—on Truth Social, where else?—that he was pulling the nomination of Clayton to be the next director of National Intelligence.
Clayton, a SEC commissioner in the first Trump administration who is currently the top Justice Department prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, was arguably not legally qualified for the job, since by law it requires “extensive national security experience.” But Republicans audibly sighed with relief that his Clayton pick put a wooden stake in Trump’s rash pick of Bill Pulte, whose only “qualification” for the job is a demonstrated passion for using his position as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to investigate the mortgages of Trump’s “enemies,” to be the acting DNI.
But at 3:54 am Eastern, that turned out to be premature. Clayton was off the table—and perhaps soon out of a job, since Trump had already announced his successor to replace him in the SDNY.
