Jay Clayton appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill July 15, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Aaron Schwartz | Getty Images
The Senate on Tuesday evening approved Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump‘s pick for director of national intelligence, for the role that would grant him access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets and authority over 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.
Clayton, a former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was confirmed on a party-line, 51-47 vote.
“Amid a heightened threat environment, having a proven leader in this role is especially important. Jay Clayton fits this mold,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said from the Senate floor on Monday.
His ascension to the role ends the controversial reign of Bill Pulte, a close Trump ally and director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who led a series of layoffs of high-ranking intelligence officials during his brief tenure.
Trump announced Clayton as has choice for DNI in June, and he was initially seen as a relatively non-controversial pick. Eager to get Pulte out of the job, lawmakers tried to fast-track Clayton’s approval. But Trump instructed Clayton not to appear the morning of a scheduled confirmation hearing in June, delaying the process.
Clayton did eventually testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence earlier this month, but the hearing turned contentious when he declined to state outright that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and defended the subpoenaing of New York Times journalists for their reporting on a Qatari jet that was gifted to Trump.
“I just voted NO on Jay Clayton’s nomination to be Director of National Intelligence. Why should someone who can’t acknowledge who won the 2020 election oversee our intelligence agencies?” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., posted to X on Tuesday.
The DOJ has since withdrawn those subpoenas.
Clayton’s confirmation could also pave the way to a deal on the renewal of a foreign surveillance law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that lapsed in June, in part due to Democratic opposition to Pulte’s interim appointment to the position.
