{"id":218683,"date":"2026-07-29T12:50:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T12:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/senate-confirms-clayton-as-new-director-of-intelligence-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T12:50:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T12:50:20","slug":"senate-confirms-clayton-as-new-director-of-intelligence-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/senate-confirms-clayton-as-new-director-of-intelligence-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate confirms Clayton as new director of intelligence – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morning Rundown: How data center backlash is shaping midterms, Iran launches fresh attacks, and a look inside the pope\u2019s summer retreat<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2014 The Senate approved President Donald Trump\u2019s choice to oversee the country\u2019s spy agencies, with the Republican majority voting Tuesday to install top federal prosecutor Jay Clayton as the next director of national intelligence.
Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, will inherit a much smaller agency after his predecessors cut the office\u2019s workforce in a series of firings in recent weeks and months. And his confirmation follows accusations from Democratic lawmakers and former national security officials that the Trump White House has tried to use the intelligence agencies to wage partisan political warfare.
The vote was 51-47 along party lines.
After Clayton was confirmed, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the Intelligence Committee\u2019s vice chairman, explained why he voted against the nomination in a statement and expressed hope that Clayton would not cave to possible political pressure from the White House.
\u201cHaving known and worked with Jay for years, I was encouraged when he was first nominated for the position of DNI,\u201d Warner said. \u201cUnfortunately, I came away from his confirmation process with serious reservations about whether he would be willing to stand up to political pressure when it matters most.\u201d
The Republican leader of the Intelligence Committee, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, welcomed the vote in favor of Clayton.
\u201cJay Clayton is a highly qualified nominee with a deep experience combatting a wide range of national security threats,\u201d Cotton said in a statement. \u201cAs U.S. attorney, Mr. Clayton has worked hand in glove with our intelligence agencies and counterterrorism personnel to lock up criminals who threaten our national security.\u201d
Hours earlier, the acting intelligence chief, Bill Pulte, announced on social media what he called a fifth round of job cuts<\/a> at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence since he took office in June. But he did not say how many positions were cut or how many employees were fired or merely reassigned to other intelligence agencies.
Pulte described the move as \u201can approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago.\u201d
The National Intelligence Director\u2019s Office had roughly 2,000 employees at the start of Trump\u2019s second term last year, and his first director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard<\/a>, had proposed cuts in the workforce of about 40%. The 30% reduction Pulte cited could put the current workforce at about 1,000, former officials said.
The National Intelligence Director\u2019s Office and the White House declined to comment.
A spokesperson for Warner said Pulte has failed to share with lawmakers information about workforce reductions or a rationale for the cuts.
\u201cThe Acting DNI has been quick to announce firings and make public claims about them, but has so far declined to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with the information necessary to assess the accuracy of those statements or the basis for those decisions,\u201d said Rachel Cohen, Warner\u2019s communications director.
Congress created the national intelligence director\u2019s position in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with the aim of ensuring that information was shared across the country\u2019s spy agencies.
But Trump and some Republican lawmakers have called for scaling back the office, which they say has become a bloated bureaucracy.
Clayton enjoys stronger support among Republican lawmakers than Pulte, a Trump loyalist who came to the job without relevant national security experience.
At his confirmation hearing<\/a> this month, Clayton refused to say who won the 2020 election, sidestepping questions that could put him at odds with Trump. Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won, was rigged.
Democrats on the Intelligence Committee said Clayton\u2019s answers raised doubts about whether he would provide accurate information to Trump if it was out of line with his views or whether he would protect spy agencies from possible political manipulation.
Trump picked Pulte to succeed Gabbard after she said she was resigning because of her husband\u2019s cancer diagnosis.
Pulte won Trump\u2019s approval as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he launched investigations<\/a> into Trump\u2019s perceived political enemies.
Dan De Luce\u00a0is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.\u00a0
Frank Thorp V is a coordinating producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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Morning Rundown: How data center backlash is shaping midterms, Iran launches fresh attacks, and a look inside the pope\u2019s summer retreat news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeWASHINGTON \u2014 The Senate approved President Donald Trump\u2019s choice to oversee the country\u2019s spy agencies, with the Republican majority voting Tuesday to install top federal prosecutor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}