{"id":14069,"date":"2026-07-23T00:48:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=14069"},"modified":"2026-07-23T00:48:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:48:23","slug":"senate-committee-advances-jay-claytons-nomination-for-intelligence-chief-over-democrats-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=14069","title":{"rendered":"Senate committee advances Jay Clayton&#8217;s nomination for intelligence chief over Democrats&#8217; opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><em>Washington \u2014 <\/em>The Senate Intelligence Committee advanced Jay Clayton&#8217;s nomination for director of national intelligence on Tuesday, despite opposition from Democrats following his confirmation hearing earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>In a 9 to 8 vote, the committee voted along party lines to advance Clayton&#8217;s nomination to the floor, GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the committee chairman, announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Jay Clayton is a highly qualified nominee with a deep experience combatting a wide range of national security threats,&#8221; Cotton said in a statement. &#8220;I&#8217;m pleased that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance his nomination to be Director of National Intelligence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>President Trump nominated Clayton, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, last month. And although some Democrats had initially praised the nomination, which came as a more controversial pick was set to take over the agency as acting director of national intelligence, their support appeared to wane following <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/jay-clayton-trumps-dni-nominee-senate-confirmation-hearing\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">Clayton&#8217;s confirmation hearing<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>At the hearing, Democrats repeatedly asked Clayton about the results of the 2020 election. And although he acknowledged that former President Joe Biden was certified as president and said he is &#8220;not an election denier,&#8221; Clayton evaded questions about who won the 2020 contest.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the committee&#8217;s vice chairman who had initially said he hoped to get Clayton confirmed &#8220;as quickly as possible,&#8221; <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/mark-warner-vote-against-jay-clayton-dni-trump-pick\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">said Sunday<\/a><\/span> that he would vote against Clayton&#8217;s nomination.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve known Jay for a long time. I like Jay. I worked well with him when he was at the SEC. But I was bitterly disappointed by his performance in front of my committee,&#8221; Warner said on &#8220;Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Democrats have also acknowledged the difficult position they&#8217;re in, with former housing official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/bill-pulte-acting-director-national-intelligence-trump\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">Bill Pulte<\/a> serving as the acting intelligence chief since Tulsi Gabbard&#8217;s departure last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pulte has no national security background and came to prominence after accusing several of the president&#8217;s political foes of mortgage fraud. Mr. Trump&#8217;s selection of him prompted Democrats to walk away from a deal to reauthorize a warrantless surveillance authority known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It expired on June 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Shortly before the expiration, the president announced that he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/jay-clayton-trump-director-of-national-intelligence\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">nominating Clayton<\/a> as director of national intelligence. And Senate Republicans moved to quickly confirm him to break the logjam on the surveillance program. But days later, Mr. Trump abruptly pushed the Senate to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/jay-clayton-senate-confirmation-hearing-director-of-national-intelligence\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">cancel plans to move forward<\/a> with Clayton&#8217;s nomination when it became clear that it could prevent Pulte from temporarily taking the helm.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite Democrats&#8217; opposition on the committee, Clayton is expected to be confirmed given the Republican majority in the Senate. Warner said with Pulte currently in the role, &#8220;we&#8217;re a little rock-in-a-hard-place here,&#8221; though he acknowledged that Clayton &#8220;will probably get confirmed.&#8221; The Virginia Democrat added, &#8220;I hope we see the Jay Clayton that I have known and have worked with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The one thing I also know is, the absolute disaster we have right now with the acting DNI, Bill Pulte, who has no intelligence experience, who has nothing but loyalty to Trump,&#8221; Warner said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n<\/section>\n<p>  <!-- data-recirc-source=\"queryly\" --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"component list recirculation component--type-recirculation  \">\n<p><h3 class=\"component__title\">More from CBS News<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"component__item-recirc-block\">\n<p><h3 class=\"component__title\">Go deeper with The Free Press<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n      <!-- tags --><br \/>\n    <\/section>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington \u2014 The Senate Intelligence Committee advanced Jay Clayton&#8217;s nomination for director of national intelligence on Tuesday, despite opposition from Democrats following his confirmation hearing earlier this month. In a 9 to 8 vote, the committee voted along party lines to advance Clayton&#8217;s nomination to the floor, GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the committee&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2026\/07\/21\/36768775-31cc-4e6a-99bb-406ad594c107\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/c0951dc8736f5677699515e3c9c6e672\/gettyimages-2285628128-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}