Trump to pick US attorney Jay Clayton for director of national intelligence

United States President Donald Trump has said he will nominate federal prosecutor Jay Clayton to be the next director of national intelligence (DNI).

The announcement on Thursday comes amid pushback over Trump’s selection of Bill Pulte as the acting director to oversee the sprawling US intelligence community following Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation from the post.

Trump loyalist Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has no intelligence experience or military experience.

Democrats vowed to withhold foreign intelligence powers if Trump did not name a new DNI, with a handful of Republicans calling on the president to change course.

While Pulte was only selected in an acting capacity, he could technically remain in the role for 210 days after taking office. By not being officially nominated, he would have also circumvented Senate confirmation.

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump hailed Clayton, who is currently a US attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay,” Trump wrote. “I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible.

Clayton’s confirmation will require a majority vote in the US Senate, where Republicans currently hold 53 out of 100 seats.

The nomination comes just a day after Trump, in a post on Truth Social, advised Pulte to cut staff at the office that oversees and coordinates 18 intelligence community agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).

Gabbard, a former Democrat who endorsed Trump ahead of the 2024 election, announced last month that she was leaving the post, citing her husband’s cancer treatment.

Gabbard had initially embraced Trump for his avowed anti-interventionist positions.

She remained a public supporter of the president even as the US abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and war with Iran appeared to undermine her own ideological stance.