Little Experience, Jay Clayton Passes as US Intelligence Chief

Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton. Photo: Wikipedia.

JAKARTA - The United States Senate confirmed Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence despite his intelligence experience being questioned. President Donald Trump's choice candidate passed through a divided vote along party lines after a heated confirmation hearing.

The Straits Times, citing Reuters, Wednesday, July 29, reported that Clayton was approved on July 28 with 51 votes in favor and 47 against. Republican senators supported him, while Democratic caucus members voted against it.

Clayton will coordinate 18 US intelligence agencies. He fills a post that has been vacant since Tulsi Gabbard resigned in June after a tenure marked by clashes with Democratic members of Congress.

Democrats have accused Gabbard of running Trump's political agenda and promoting election claims that have been refuted.

Controversy also hangs over Clayton. In his confirmation hearing, he repeatedly avoided direct statements that Trump lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Clayton only said Biden had been "certified" as president, passed "the applicable process", and won "the most electoral votes". He did not explicitly say Biden won the election.

Electoral votes are the votes from each state that determine the winner of the US presidential election.

The trial in early July several times turned into a vote. Clayton insisted that he was not a denier of the election results.

The debate comes as the US midterm elections are just over three months away. The elections will determine which party controls Congress.

Trump pushed "election security" as a key issue even though various findings say voter fraud is rare. Democrats accused Trump of using the issue to cast doubt on the victory of his political opponents.

The controversy did not stop at Clayton's attitude towards the 2020 election. The Democratic senator also questioned the subpoena against a reporter from The New York Times.

The reporters were asked to testify before a federal grand jury after reporting security concerns over a new Air Force One plane donated to Trump by Qatar.

The federal jury board is a panel of citizens who assess whether the evidence is sufficient to bring a criminal case to court.

A prosecutor said the Trump administration would withdraw the subpoena after the judge asked a series of questions about the investigation.

Clayton's confirmation process was stalled. In mid-June, Trump ordered a delay in the first hearing to pressure Congress to overhaul US election rules.

A number of senators, including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, a Republican, originally expected the hearing to go ahead. However, Clayton did not attend after Trump ordered him not to come.

The delay sparked outrage among Democrats because Trump appointed Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte is known to be loyal to Trump, but has no national security expertise.

Since taking over on an interim basis in June, Pulte has ordered a number of layoffs of intelligence employees.

Democrats then withheld support for an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The rule allows US intelligence agencies to collect electronic communications of foreign nationals outside the United States.

Senate staff said they did not know when Article 702 could be extended even though Clayton had been passed.

The Republicans control the Senate with 53 seats to 47. They need at least seven Democratic votes to meet the 60-vote threshold in an FISA extension.

Clayton, 60, previously worked as a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell specializing in mergers and capital raising. During Trump's first term, he led the Securities and Exchange Commission and was known to be quite moderate in working with Democratic commissioners.

Trump appointed him as acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in April 2025. The position includes one of the most influential prosecutorial positions in the US.

His official history shows that Clayton does not have an intelligence background and extensive experience in national security. Such experience is one of the legal requirements for serving as Director of National Intelligence.

However, his supporters, including a number of Democrats before the confirmation process was embroiled in controversy, judged his work as the Manhattan Federal Prosecutor to involve quite a few national security cases that qualified him for the post.