{"id":1939,"date":"2026-06-12T11:32:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=1939"},"modified":"2026-06-12T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:32:28","slug":"trump-plans-to-nominate-us-attorney-jay-clayton-to-be-national-intelligence-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=1939","title":{"rendered":"Trump plans to nominate US Attorney Jay Clayton to be national intelligence director"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to nominate Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, as director of national intelligence.<\/p>\n

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Trump announced the nomination on social media amid pressure from Congress to name a permanent replacement for Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned last month. Trump faced intense pushback over his decision to name Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as acting director.<\/p>\n

The situation has led to a standoff in Congress as Democrats said they would refuse to renew a foreign intelligence powers unless Trump pulled Pulte\u2019s nomination and named a permanent nominee.<\/p>\n

\u201cFew people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cI encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking later Thursday in the Oval Office, Trump said he still plans to keep Pulte in the role \u201cfor a little while\u201d after earlier saying he wants Pulte to downsize the office. He called Clayton an \u201cincredible talent\u201d and said, \u201cNobody has better credentials.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Clayton oversees the most prestigious of the Justice Department\u2019s prosecution offices, with a vast portfolio ranging from terrorism and espionage cases to security fraud and public corruption.<\/p>\n

He took over from interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who resigned in February after refusing to carry out orders from the Justice Department to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams. The case was eventually dropped after prosecutors from Washington submitted a request to a judge.<\/p>\n

Republicans hope to move quickly on nomination<\/h3>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., says the Senate could move \u201cfairly quickly\u201d to confirm Clayton as director of national intelligence if the White House submits his paperwork soon.<\/p>\n

He praised Clayton, saying he has a \u201cgreat reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats are holding up the renewal of a key surveillance law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, in protest of Trump\u2019s decision to temporarily tap Pulte. They say they won\u2019t support an extension of the law, which expires at midnight Friday, until Trump withdraws Pulte\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n

Trump previously said Pulte would take over on June 19. It is unclear whether the Senate could move quickly enough to confirm Clayton before that date.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what realistic is, but we\u2019re gonna probe the limits of it,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n

Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he has \u201cknown and respected\u201d Clayton for decades and that if Trump had named him as the DNI nominee last week, \u201clots of pain might have been avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis intelligence, temperament and deep commitment to public service will make him a terrific DNI,\u201d Himes said.<\/p>\n

Asked about Clayton\u2019s nomination, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said, \u201cPulte has to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe cannot be in the DNI role,\u201d Schumer said. \u201cIt\u2019s too important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s pick has led SDNY during a tumultuous period<\/h3>\n

Clayton navigated his way through a 14-month tenure in the Southern District of New York without clashing with the federal judges in the busiest court in the nation, unlike his counterparts in upstate New York and New Jersey. After his interim term expired after 120 days, the judges of the Southern District appointed him as U.S. attorney.<\/p>\n

Clayton was sworn in April 2025 on the same day three prosecutors resigned, saying they felt pressured to admit wrongdoing or regret about prosecuting the case against Adams.<\/p>\n

Then, weeks later, the office had to withstand controversy over the Trump administration\u2019s firing of one of its most respected and successful prosecutors, Maurene Comey. She claims she was fired because of Trump\u2019s dislike of her father, former FBI Director James Comey.<\/p>\n

Under Clayton, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office facilitated the unsealing of thousands of pages of court records from the prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell \u2014 documents that were made public as part of the Justice Department\u2019s release of records related to the late sex offender and his longtime confidant.<\/p>\n

Clayton filed documents with the court explaining the process the government followed in releasing the materials.<\/p>\n

Clayton has also overseen the prosecution of former Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and Maduro\u2019s wife, Cilia Flores, on drug trafficking charges.<\/p>\n

Clayton has overseen cases involving national security threats<\/h3>\n

Several recent terrorism cases brought by Clayton\u2019s office touch on the global threats and influences that he\u2019ll be navigating if confirmed as director of national intelligence.<\/p>\n

They include the May arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, an Iraqi and Iranian citizen accused of plotting 20 attacks in Europe and Canada and planning to attack a Manhattan synagogue and Jewish centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona, in retaliation for the U.S. war on Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are foreign nations and terrorist organizations that see our success as a threat. A threat that they want eliminated,\u201d Clayton said at a recent press briefing. \u201cThat is a stark truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd don\u2019t take my word for it,\u201d he added. \u201cTake their words and their actions. When your enemies tell you something, and when they act, you should know that they mean it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first Trump administration tried in June 2020 to install Clayton, then the chairman of the SEC, as U.S. attorney in Manhattan, but backed down and instead allowed Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss to serve in the post. The reversal came after then-U. S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman agreed to step down, following assurances that probes into Trump allies would not be disrupted and that Strauss could lead the office.<\/p>\n

At the time, the office was looking into dealings by Rudy Giuliani, who was serving as Trump\u2019s personal attorney, and was also investigating the actions of a state-owned Turkish bank.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Neumeister and Sisak reported from New York. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Mary Clare Jalonick and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Read more FBI seizes 13 websites that officials say were used by China to target and recruit US workers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to nominate Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, as director of national intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump plans to nominate US Attorney Jay Clayton to be national intelligence director - Tucson Moving Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=1939\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump plans to nominate US Attorney Jay Clayton to be national intelligence director - 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