The Senate voted 51-47 on Tuesday to confirm Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence, handing President Trump control of the 18-agency intelligence community that spent his first term trying to bury him. Every single Democrat voted no.
Of course they did.
Clayton — a former SEC chairman, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and federal prosecutor — replaces Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from the post earlier this year. Since her departure, Trump loyalist Bill Pulte has served as acting director while simultaneously holding his role as federal housing regulator. The confirmation ends what had become a prolonged vacancy that Democrats were perfectly happy to exploit.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune pushed the vote through over unified Democratic opposition. The resistance was loud, theatrical, and ultimately pointless — which is becoming something of a brand for the minority party.
Sen. Adam Schiff of California — a man whose relationship with intelligence community leaks could charitably be described as "collaborative" — argued that Clayton's confirmation "suggests that if the president wants the intelligence agencies to cook up something to justify voter interference in the midterm elections, that Jay Clayton doesn't have the backbone to stand up to him." That's Schiff's concern. Not the integrity of intelligence. Not national security. Whether Clayton will be sufficiently hostile to the president who appointed him.
Democrats initially preferred Clayton to Pulte as the permanent pick. They wanted a traditional nominee over a Trump loyalist running the shop on an acting basis. Then Clayton showed up, went through the hearing, and suddenly he was unacceptable too. The goalposts didn't just move — they got loaded onto a flatbed and driven to a different stadium.
Clayton inherits an intelligence apparatus already mid-renovation. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has undergone roughly 30% staff reductions, with a fifth round of dismissals just completed this week. The same community that ran the Russia collusion operation, that buried the Hunter Biden laptop, that classified documents showing Chinese interference in 2020 — that community now reports to a Trump appointee confirmed by the United States Senate.
During his confirmation hearing, Clayton told senators plainly: "I'm not an election denier." He acknowledged Biden was "certified" as the winner in 2020. That wasn't enough for Democrats, because nothing was going to be enough for Democrats. The vote was 51-47 before the first question was ever asked.