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On Thursday, President Donald Trump nominated U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to become the next Director of National Intelligence (DNI), one of the top federal roles for advising the president on matters of national security.
The selection of Clayton comes as Trump has been widely criticized for selecting Bill Pulte, currently head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), to be “acting” DNI, despite Pulte having zero experience in the realm of national security. According to the statute governing the position, the DNI is required to have “extensive national security experience.”
Trump has indicated that, despite that limitation, Pulte will remain acting DNI until Clayton is confirmed.
But like Pulte, Clayton has almost no national security experience. His positions in government have sometimes touched such matters, but only in small ways — and definitely not to the “extensive” degree the law demands.
Clayton is currently the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). He previously served as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term in office. Beyond those roles, most of his legal experience has been as a “consigliere” lawyer to banking and investment companies. Indeed, Clayton is the first person to lead SDNY who hadn’t previously served as a prosecutor.
His most notable action under Trump is perhaps signing off on an indictment against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, which led to U.S. troops kidnapping Maduro from his country earlier this year, a move that has been widely condemned as a violation of international law.
His strongest qualification is likely his deep loyalty to Trump, including peddling baseless conspiracy theories pushed by the president. For example, in a CNBC interview earlier this week, Clayton endorsed Trump’s false claims about election fraud in California.
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“We’re doing an absolutely terrible job, and the American people are right to question it,” Clayton said, without providing proof of any improprieties in the election whatsoever.
Critics are lambasting the pick as yet another Trump nomination based on loyalty rather than actual credentials.
Like Pulte, “Clayton has no relevant intelligence experience, either,” wrote political observer and military veteran Allison Gill on her “Mueller She Wrote” account on Bluesky.
“Jay Clayton does not have the ‘extensive expertise’ in intelligence the law says the DNI must possess,” Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn noted.
“When first eyed for SDNY US Attorney, Clayton’s predecessor Geoff Berman called him ‘unqualified,’” legal journalist and editor in chief of All Rise News Adam Klasfeld said. “But Clayton has Trump’s most prized qualification: He just boosted election conspiracy theories on TV.”
“Trump is in countless wars but still picks a DNI who knows nothing about intelligence,” wrote historian Sanho Tree, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. “This is dangerous and illegal malpractice.”
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