The Senate begins voting Monday on Jay Clayton to lead the nation's 18 intelligence agencies, and the only question the press and both parties seem interested in is whether he's sufficiently obedient to the president — not whether a Manhattan federal prosecutor belongs anywhere near the surveillance state's inner sanctum.
Clayton's nomination to be director of national intelligence advanced out of the Senate Intelligence Committee on a straight 9-8 party-line vote last Tuesday. A procedural vote is expected Monday evening, with final confirmation likely later this week. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority and rarely break from the White House, so Clayton is expected to be confirmed even if every Democrat balks, according to Reuters.
The DNI position — created after 9/11 to coordinate the sprawling intelligence apparatus — has been vacant since Tulsi Gabbard stepped down in June. Senators from both parties are reportedly eager to fill it because they're unhappy with interim director Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency chief who has been cutting staff at the intelligence office despite having no national security experience.
So the fix is in: a federal prosecutor with no apparent intelligence background is being installed to oversee 18 spy agencies, and the confirmation fight has been reduced to a loyalty test.
Democrats on the Intelligence Committee grilled Clayton for refusing to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden voted no, declaring Clayton "incapable of telling the truth or demonstrating an iota of independence from Donald Trump." Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, the committee chair, countered that Clayton is a "highly qualified nominee with a deep experience combating a wide range of national security threats."
Neither side is asking the question that matters: what exactly qualifies a Manhattan U.S. attorney to run the intelligence community? The press isn't asking either. The Guardian and Reuters both describe Clayton's current title and his confirmation fight, but neither outlet examines the revolving door between federal prosecutors, Wall Street, and the surveillance apparatus. Clayton's background and financial ties — the kind of thing that tells you who a nominee actually answers to — went unexamined.
Then there's the press freedom problem. Clayton faced questioning from Democrats about his decision to issue grand jury subpoenas to New York Times journalists over their reporting on security concerns involving Trump's Qatari-donated Air Force One replacement plane. A prosecutor told a court hearing Tuesday that the administration would withdraw those subpoenas — but only after a judge started asking hard questions. Clayton issued the subpoenas. A judge pushed back. The administration retreated. That sequence tells you something about how Clayton views the First Amendment when it collides with executive power.
Trump himself has already shown how little he values the confirmation process. In mid-June, he abruptly ordered Clayton's hearing postponed to pressure Congress into passing a voting overhaul. Clayton didn't show up after Trump ordered him to stay away. Cotton initially said the hearing would proceed, then folded. The nominee's independence was tested before the hearing even started, and he failed.
The intelligence community hoovers up Americans' data, monitors communications, and operates with minimal oversight. The person running it should face maximum scrutiny. Instead, Clayton is being waved through on party lines, with the press corps asleep at the switch and both parties arguing about loyalty to a man rather than liberty for the country.
The open question: once Clayton is confirmed, whose interests will he protect — the Americans being surveilled, or the institutions doing the surveilling?
