Jay Clayton confirmed as DNI in party-line vote replacing Gabbard
Jay Clayton prepares for DNI confirmation hearing
Fox News chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram covers the Senate confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, who plans to become the next director of national intelligence. Pergram also reported that House Republicans tied the SAVE America Act to a State Department funding bill following the end of the FISA program.
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Senate Democrats demanded a new, experienced person to lead the nation’s spy agencies, but when given the chance, they rejected President Donald Trump’s latest pick.
Still, their resistance wasn’t enough to stop Republicans from confirming Jay Clayton as the next Director of National Intelligence (DNI), replacing former DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Clayton, who was elected last year as Manhattan’s top prosecutor, was confirmed in a party-line vote Tuesday.
He will replace acting DNI and Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, whose interim appointment prompted Senate Democrats to demand an immediate and permanent reassignment over fears that Pulte would weaponize or seek to dismantle the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies.
AS CORE COUNTERTERRORISM PROGRAM REMAINS IN DISPUTE, THE Senate Paves THE WAY FOR TRUMP’S PRESIDENT SPY
Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), during the Bloomberg Global Credit Forum in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Clayton’s confirmation was thought to be a means to end the ongoing wrangling over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a tool used to thwart various terrorist plots, including the planned mass shooting at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, Austria.
But when it came time to vote and after a contentious confirmation hearing in which only Republicans voted to send him to the Senate floor, they changed their tune.
“As Senate Republicans once again seek to confirm an inexperienced and unqualified nominee for a position that will have major national security implications for years to come, one thing remains clear: this type of politicized leadership will only make Americans less safe,” Senator Adam Schiff, R-Calif., said in a statement.
In a nutshell, the Section 702 program allows the U.S. government to collect intelligence on foreigners using U.S. communications systems abroad and forms a key part of Trump’s daily intelligence briefings.
REGULATORS ARE CONFUSED AFTER TRUMP REVEALS A PROPOSAL TO REVISIT HIS MAIN COUNTER-TERRORISM TOOL DAYS AFTER THE FBI BLOCKED UFC PLAN
But it also sweeps up the communications of Americans talking to foreign suspects; This is a major issue that threatened reauthorization among privacy hawks on both sides long before Pulte’s appointment and Clayton’s subsequent nomination.
But the program expired last month in response to Pulte’s appointment, despite warnings from Republicans that allowing Section 702 to be blacked out could have serious national security consequences.
And Clayton’s confirmation doesn’t seem likely to resolve the partisan deadlock for now. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and a top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee told Fox News Digital there is no pressure to reauthorize FISA.
“Democrats have refused to pass a bipartisan FISA bill until a new DNI is approved,” a spokesman for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital. “Now that Jay Clayton has been confirmed, it is time for them to stop playing politics with national security and vote to give our intelligence community the tools it needs to keep this country safe.”
TRUMP’S DNI PICK POPES SIGNIFICANT OBSTACLES BY REVIVING THE PATH FOR THE COUNTRY’S TOP-LEVEL COUNTERTERRORISM SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., arrives at the Capitol Visitor Center for a briefing on Iran on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“You know… we don’t have immediate time pressure because the communications providers are still collaborating,” Warner said.
Ahead of the reauthorization deadline, lawmakers had differing opinions about what exactly would happen if it got completely dark. Some have argued that this number will gradually decrease because FISA courts have already allowed continued intelligence collection through 2027.
Others worried that telecommunications giants like Google would ignore the agreements without express permission from Congress.
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However, as Warner points out, the latter does not happen.
Still, this puts Clayton and the intelligence community on a dark path for months to come. And there isn’t much time left on the Senate’s calendar to resolve this issue. The upper house is scheduled to leave Washington after the first week of August and will not return until early September. Keeping the government open from now on will be up to Senate Majority Leader RS.D. It will be John Thune’s first priority.
