By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Intelligence Committee has advanced the nomination of Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the nation’s intelligence agencies, along party lines.
The 9-8 vote came after some Democrats had praised Clayton and indicated that they might vote for him. But that shifted after a contentious hearing last week in which Clayton repeatedly refused to say that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, said during the hearing that he was “bitterly disappointed” in Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, even though he had worked with him in the past.
The committee’s approval sets up a floor vote on Clayton’s nomination, potentially early next week. The vote took place behind closed doors, as is customary for the panel, and all Democrats voted against Clayton, according to a person familiar with the vote who requested anonymity to disclose it.
Democrats are unlikely to allow Republicans to speed up a vote on the nomination after the hearing, at which Clayton said many times that the election was “certified” for Biden, declining to say outright that the Democrat won.
But Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said after the hearing that he thought Clayton’s performance was “abysmal,” and that “makes it much less likely that he will get Democratic votes.”
Democrats push back as Trump focuses on 2020
The Democratic pushback on Clayton comes as Trump has made revisiting the 2020 election, which he lost, a primary focus. On Thursday evening, he delivered a speech from the White House in which he again tried to cast doubts on that election and amplified debunked theories about Biden’s win. Clayton told senators that he had no involvement with that speech.
Senators in both parties have expressed concerns about the interim director, Bill Pulte, who took over when Tulsi Gabbard resigned last month. Pulte has no known intelligence experience and investigated the president’s perceived enemies in his previous post as a federal housing regulator.
Republicans were hoping to confirm Clayton in June so he could replace Gabbard without Pulte serving as interim. But Trump delayed Clayton’s nomination before the Senate left for a two-week recess, allowing Pulte to take the job temporarily.
Clayton did not mention Pulte in the hearing. But he emphasized his own government and national security experience, attempting to assuage senators in both parties.
“I saw firsthand how a strong national security apparatus depends on decisive judgment, discipline, integrity, and effective communication and cooperation across different branches of the government,” Clayton said in his opening statement. “If confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, I will commit to upholding these principles every day.”
Cotton, who expressed frustration last month when the hearing was delayed, said that Clayton has a reputation for operating with “morality, decency and integrity” in his previous positions.
“Jay Clayton is a highly qualified nominee with a deep experience combatting a wide range of national security threats. I’m pleased that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance his nomination to be Director of National Intelligence,” Cotton said in a statement on Tuesday.