Senate Confirms Clayton as Director of National Intelligence

Jay Clayton is stepping into a powerful intelligence job just as the office he'll run is shrinking fast. The Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Trump's pick to serve as director of national intelligence in a 51-47 vote split strictly along party lines, elevating the Manhattan US attorney to lead the nation's spy-coordination hub, NBC News reports. He's the permanent replacement for Tulsi Gabbard, who announced in May that she was resigning because of her husband's cancer diagnosis. Clayton inherits an Office of the Director of National Intelligence that may have lost roughly half its staff since Trump's second term began, though the exact numbers are classified.

Acting DNI Bill Pulte announced yet another round of cuts hours before the vote. "We are, this morning, Executing a 5th and Near Final Round of TERMINATIONS, an approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago," Pulte said on X. Pulte has declined to provide details to lawmakers, prompting criticism from Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats. They say they've been kept in the dark on who is being let go and why, amid broader concerns that Trump is reshaping the post-9/11 office he has long labeled bloated.

According to the Washington Post, Pulte cut around 200 jobs in his five weeks in charge of the ODNI, which oversees the nation's 18 intelligence agencies. Clayton has broader support among Republicans than Pulte, who was criticized as inexperienced and unqualified, NBC reports. The Post notes that many Democrats initially said they would support Clayton, but they soured on him after his confirmation hearing earlier this month, in which he refused to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. "Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions?" Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff asked Clayton after he would only acknowledge that Biden was "certified" as the winner.