{"id":20627,"date":"2026-07-29T05:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T00:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20627"},"modified":"2026-07-29T05:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T00:36:08","slug":"jay-clayton-confirmed-as-dni-a-position-trump-warped-to-feed-his-election-conspiracy-theories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20627","title":{"rendered":"Jay Clayton Confirmed As DNI \u2014 A Position Trump Warped to Feed His Election Conspiracy Theories"},"content":{"rendered":"<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\r\n<br><div id=\"article-content\">\n            \n\n\n\n\n<p>Jay Clayton was confirmed as the Trump administration\u2019s new Director of National Intelligence\u00a0in a 51 to 47 vote along party lines in the Senate on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>President Trump has transformed the role of DNI \u2014 under Tulsi Gabbard who resigned from the role in May of this year, and then under interim DNI Bill Pulte \u2014 away from foreign intelligence and into a position that he has used to investigate his conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and election administration general. The concern now is that under Clayton, who refused during his confirmation hearing earlier this month to say that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, the role of DNI will continue to be used as a way to advance the administration\u2019s election interference agenda.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>It appears as though much of Gabbard\u2019s and Pulte\u2019s work so far has centered on helping the Justice Department magically materialize evidence to support Trump\u2019s rampant voter fraud delusions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>During her tenure, Gabbard was heavily involved in the FBI\u2019s raid of a Fulton County election hub in January. She was actually present on site at this raid reportedly at Trump\u2019s direct request, as TPM has <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/odni-nominee-claytons-answers-on-election-integrity-are-too-cute-by-half\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a>. Democrats in Congress have since questioned why the DNI was involved in a FBI raid related to a domestic issue \u2014 seemingly exceeding the scope of the role of an intelligence official.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>During his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing earlier this month, Clayton was asked explicitly about Gabbard\u2019s role in the Fulton County investigation by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA). Clayton only <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/odni-nominee-claytons-answers-on-election-integrity-are-too-cute-by-half\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> he \u201chad not thought about it until you brought it to my attention yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>During that same Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing, Clayton also repeatedly <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/odni-nominee-claytons-answers-on-election-integrity-are-too-cute-by-half\" target=\"_blank\">dodged<\/a> questions from Democrats about the 2020 election, refusing to say explicitly that Biden won the presidential election that year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Intel Committee Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-VA) was the first to ask Clayton during his confirmation hearing if Biden won the 2020 election. Instead of providing a direct answer, Clayton simply said that he is \u201cnot an election denier\u201d and that \u201cJoe Biden was certified as the President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Sen. Angus King (I-ME) similarly asked Clayton who won the 2020 election, and Clayton, once again, refused to answer directly.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cThe answer to the chairman was, he asked me if I was an election denier. I am not an election denier,\u201d he said. \u201cJoe Biden was certified as the president. He went through his process. We went through our electoral process.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>At another point, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) also pressed Clayton on why Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 election. Clayton, again, refused to say that Biden won the election.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going back to my constitutional law here, but I don\u2019t want to continue to have a debate about this, but I believe he had the most electoral votes,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->          <\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n    window.fbAsyncInit = function() {\n      FB.init({\n        appId: \"101800829865996\",\n        xfbml: true,\n        version: ' v2.6'\n      });\n      window.fbAsyncInit.__didInit = true;\n    };\n    (function(d, s, id) {\n      var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n      if (d.getElementById(id)) {\n        return;\n      }\n      js = d.createElement(s);\n      js.id = id;\n      js.src = \"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\";\n      fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n    }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n  <\/script>\r\n<br><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jay Clayton was confirmed as the Trump administration\u2019s new Director of National Intelligence\u00a0in a 51 to 47 vote along party lines in the Senate on Tuesday evening. President Trump has transformed the role of DNI \u2014 under Tulsi Gabbard who resigned from the role in May of this year, and then under interim DNI Bill&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2285591418.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20627","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=20627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}