{"id":7483,"date":"2026-07-16T09:03:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T04:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7483"},"modified":"2026-07-16T09:03:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T04:03:38","slug":"cnns-elie-honig-savages-jay-clayton-as-a-chameleon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7483","title":{"rendered":"CNN&#8217;s Elie Honig Savages Jay Clayton as a &#8216;Chameleon&#8217;"},"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=\"post-body\">\n<p>CNN Senior Legal Analyst <strong>Elie Honig<\/strong> unloaded on <strong>Jay Clayton<\/strong>, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has been nominated to be the next Director of National Intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>During his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/tom-cotton-furiously-ends-trump-dni-nominees-hearing-as-democrats-ask-for-more-time\/\">confirmation hearing<\/a> on Wednesday, Clayton was asked by multiple Democratic senators whether former President <strong>Joe Biden<\/strong> had defeated President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> in the 2020 election. The nominee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/im-not-an-election-denier-trumps-new-dni-nominee-says-under-oath-joe-biden-won-the-2020-election\/\">refused to say<\/a>, instead opting to frame the matter as Biden having been \u201ccertified\u201d as the winner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not an election denier,\u201d Clayton told the Senate Intelligence Committee.<\/p>\n<p>In another exchange, Sen. <strong>Jon Ossoff<\/strong> (D-GA) asked Clayton about the FBI\u2019s execution of a search warrant on an election office in Atlanta in January. Specifically, Ossoff asked about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/tulsi-gabbards-georgia-election-raid-initiated-by-recently-hired-stop-the-steal-lawyer\/\">presence<\/a> of then-Director of National Intelligence<strong> Tulsi Gabbard<\/strong> at the raid, despite having no authority over the probe. That investigation is seemingly connected to Trump\u2019s false claims of election fraud. Clayton was caught off guard by the question and said he had not anticipated that he would be asked about the matter.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday\u2019s installment of <em>The Source<\/em>, host <strong>Kaitlan Collins<\/strong> noted that Ossoff\u2019s line of questioning was an attempt to ascertain the lengths Clayton would go for Trump, even if given dubious orders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTulsi Gabbard was criticized,\u201d Collins noted. \u201cPeople [were] saying, \u2018That is not the job of the Director of National Intelligence, to be there in a law enforcement capacity.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Honig, who was an assistant U.S. attorney in the office Clayton currently leads, said the nominee has a less-than-sterling reputation:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Exactly. It goes to Jay Clayton\u2019s conception of what that job as DNI entails. And to be on site of a search warrant, to have the DNI there, is completely out of place, is completely ridiculous. And I think that would\u2019ve been the natural follow up had he acknowledged that he remembered anything.<\/p>\n<p>And one other thing about Jay Clayton, I don\u2019t know him. He took over the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office at S.D.N.Y. a couple years after I left. But I know plenty of people there. And the reputation of Jay Clayton is that he\u2019s a chameleon, that he goes by to get by. He goes along to get along, that he lacks the backbone to stand up for that office. He\u2019s not as over-the-top offensive as some other folks we\u2019ve seen in high positions at DOJ, but he\u2019s not deeply respected in that office right now. And tears were not shed when he was nominated for this job, if he gets it someday.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>During Trump\u2019s first administration, Clayton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/about\/sec-commissioners\/sec-historical-summary-chairmen-commissioners\/jay-clayton\">served<\/a> as the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n<p>Watch above via CNN.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig unloaded on Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has been nominated to be the next Director of National Intelligence. During his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Clayton was asked by multiple Democratic senators whether former President Joe Biden had defeated President Donald Trump&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screen-Shot-2026-07-15-at-7-17-38-PM.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7483","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=7483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}