Congress
Mike Rogers is not under consideration to lead FBI, top Trump aide says
An incoming top White House aide to President-elect Donald Trump on Friday shut down speculation that former Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan would lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“It’s not happening,” Dan Scavino Jr., Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff, wrote on X.
Scavino said he had spoken to the president-elect about Rogers, who for years has been floated to take over as FBI director.
Trump’s response, according to Scavino: “I have never even given it a thought.”
Rogers, a former FBI special agent and House Armed Services Chair who narrowly lost his Michigan Senate bid earlier this month, was endorsed by the FBI Agents Association in 2013 and 2017 to lead the agency. He was also under consideration for Defense Secretary before Trump tapped Pete Hegseth, Blue Light News reported.
But Rogers was also seen as an establishment figure — and with his Cabinet picks, Trump is doing all he can to subvert what his base calls the “deep state.”
Another reported top contender for the role, Trump’s former acting Director of National Intelligence Kash Patel, said he would “shut down the FBI Hoover building on Day 1 and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.”
Jay Clayton is on the verge of becoming President Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence — though Democrats won’t be helping him get there.
The news: The Senate on Monday voted 51-43 in a party line vote to move forward with Clayton’s nomination, teeing up a final vote as soon as Tuesday to confirm him as the next head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. No Democrats joined their GOP counterparts in support of Clayton.
Clayton, the top prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and a former SEC chair, will take over from acting spy czar Bill Pulte and join Trump’s Cabinet when he’s confirmed by the full Senate.
Why it matters: At some level, that’s a win for Democrats, who have been eager to replace Pulte, a Trump loyalist with no background in national security, since the president named him to the post last month. But after an up-and-down confirmation process for Clayton, Democrats have new reservations about the incoming intel adviser, as Monday’s vote underscored.
During his Senate confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Clayton refused to say that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 vote, leading Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Panel to vote against his nomination. That marked a reversal from June, when Senate Democrats worked with their GOP counterparts to fast-track Clayton’s confirmation in exchange for renewing a powerful spy law. That deal fell apart after Trump intervened, alleging on social media that Democrats weren’t delivering on their end of the deal.
Open question: Though Clayton’s confirmation now looks imminent, Senate action on the spy statute that was supposed to be part of the deal — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — is not.
With the House already gone for the August recess, the Senate appears unlikely to vote on Section 702 until September.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with lawmakers in Washington to discuss American leadership on artificial intelligence, the company said Monday.
A spokesperson for the chipmaker said Huang would hold talks with both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to talk about latest developments with the technology.
“Jensen is in DC to meet with leaders on both sides of the aisle to discuss American leadership in AI, including leading in open source,” the spokesperson said.
Huang is scheduled to sit down Tuesday with Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has expressed serious concern about security threats following last week’s OpenAI autonomous cyberattack.
The senator’s office confirmed the meeting. Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It comes as Huang defended open-source AI on X, writing that such models “strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty.”
Huang’s visit comes as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also expected to meet with Warner, although a spokesperson for the senator said the talks were separate. Earlier Monday, Open AI announced it was in talks with Nvidia, a technology company that makes chips to use artificial intelligence, for a data center project.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The House Ethics Committee said in a statement Monday it is investigating Rep. Lance Gooden, a four-term Texas Republican.
It’s unclear what the committee is probing, but the Office of Congressional Conduct, an independent investigative branch of the House, sent over findings regarding Gooden to the committee June 10.
The Ethics panel plans to release an update on its investigation by Nov. 9. Committee representatives declined to comment beyond the statement.
In 2021, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint asking for an investigation into Gooden’s apparent failure to report his stock trades in a timely manner, which is a requirement under a federal law known as the STOCK Act. The complaint was sent to the OCC.
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