Trump cancels – President Trump says he is delaying his nomination of Jay Clayton for director of national intelligence, canceling a confirmation hearing that was scheduled for Wednesday and keeping Bill Pulte as acting director. In a late-night Truth Social post, Trump links
By just before 4 a.m. eastern, the plan to move quickly on a new director of national intelligence had snapped—cleanly and publicly.
President Trump. at the G7 Summit in France. used a surprise Truth Social post to say he was canceling the Senate hearing scheduled for Wednesday for Jay Clayton. his nominee to lead the Director of National Intelligence. He demanded that the Senate advance an entirely different appointment while also tying progress on a controversial surveillance authority to an unrelated package of voting restrictions that has already failed to move.
“Regarding the approval of our Great Patriot. Jay Clayton. we are cancelling the Senate Hearing RE: DNI today. and will not be going forward until Jamie McDonald is approved to be U.S. Attorney. In the meantime, Bill Pulte will remain as the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote.
The interruption comes less than 12 hours before Clayton is set to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee. For lawmakers who had pushed to get ahead of the interim period. the White House’s sudden pivot turned a confirmation timetable into leverage—at a moment when national security. surveillance law. and election-related legislation are all colliding.
Trump said the abrupt change was part of a deal with Democrats aimed at pressuring the Senate to act on two tracks at once. In his post. he said the effort to quickly approve Clayton was meant to derail his earlier. temporary pick. Bill Pulte. who Trump described as lacking the kind of intelligence experience that senators would expect from the top of the intelligence community.
He also said the reauthorization of the surveillance tool known as FISA Section 702 must be tied to a package of voting restrictions. That voting proposal has previously failed to advance in the Senate.
The stakes for Congress are immediate because the director of national intelligence is not a symbolic role—it leads the intelligence community across 18 agencies and organizations. and advises the president on national security issues. including through drafting and delivering the President’s Daily Brief.
At the center of this standoff is Jay Clayton’s trajectory. Clayton currently serves as a federal prosecutor in charge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. In that role. the article says he has overseen high-profile cases including the indictment and arrest of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Clayton was previously confirmed by the Senate to serve as the head of the Securities and Exchange commission during President Trump’s first term.
Senators had hoped to move Clayton quickly, with the aim of having him sworn in by June 19—the date Trump has said his acting director, Bill Pulte, would step into the role on a temporary basis.
That interim structure is now being extended by force, at least on Trump’s timeline. Trump’s post said that Clayton’s hearing would not proceed until Jamie McDonald is approved to be U.S. Attorney, and that Bill Pulte would remain as acting director of national intelligence in the meantime.
Pulte’s presence on Capitol Hill has been a political and procedural headache from the start.
Pulte’s appointment earlier this month was met with dismay on Capitol Hill. He currently serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and would enter the intelligence job with no national intelligence experience. The article describes him as having used his current sub-cabinet level role to assail the president’s perceived foes. including by serving as a cheerleader for Trump’s pressure campaign that sought to push then-Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to resign.
It also says Pulte has used his social media following to broadcast accusations that several of the president’s perceived enemies had committed mortgage fraud. including Fed official Lisa Cook. New York’s Democratic Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Each has denied wrongdoing.
Democrats and even some Republicans, the article says, worry that Pulte could “weaponize the key national security role.”
The turbulence around Pulte is tied to a separate ticking clock in Washington: the expiration on Friday of a nearly two decade-old spy law that underpins a great deal of U.S. intelligence gathering.
Trump has suggested, according to the article, that Pulte will serve in the role for some amount of time. Trump told the Wall Street Journal he hopes to see Pulte declassify documents related to the 2020 election and downsize the agency.
Before Pulte, the director’s seat belonged to Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her resignation last month citing her husband’s cancer diagnosis.
Gabbard’s time as director of national intelligence was described as controversial. She was a former Democrat nominated to the role despite her lack of experience in U.S. intelligence and remarks supporting autocratic leaders in Syria and Russia. She was ultimately confirmed in a near-party line vote.
The article also says that while serving as director, charged with presenting an objective view of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessments to policymakers including the president. Gabbard attended an FBI raid on a Georgia election office that has been at the heart of Trump’s baseless election fraud conspiracy theories.
Right now. the timeline that lawmakers hoped would reduce the interim period appears to have been cut off by Trump’s late-night demand—redirecting attention from Clayton’s credentials to the question of whether the Senate will accept the linkage Trump is proposing: FISA Section 702 reauthorization tied to voting restrictions. and progress on one nomination made conditional on another.
The Director of National Intelligence role is supposed to steady national security decision-making across the intelligence community. Instead. the scramble now rests on two calendars at once—one for nominations. one for surveillance law—and on whether the Senate will move first. or wait for the next new demand.
President Trump Jay Clayton Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte FISA Section 702 Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing voting bill Jamie McDonald U.S. Attorney Tulsi Gabbard