Jay Clayton is on the verge of becoming President Donald Trump\u2019s next director of national intelligence \u2014 though Democrats won\u2019t be helping him get there.<\/p>\n

The news: <\/b>The Senate on Monday voted 51-43 in a party line vote to move forward with Clayton\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Clayton, the top prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney\u2019s office and a former SEC chair, will take over from acting spy czar Bill Pulte and join Trump\u2019s Cabinet when he\u2019s confirmed by the full Senate.<\/p>\n

Why it matters:<\/b> At some level, that\u2019s 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<\/a> last month. But after an up-and-down confirmation process for Clayton, Democrats have new reservations about the incoming intel adviser, as Monday\u2019s vote underscored.<\/p>\n

During his Senate confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Clayton refused to say<\/a> that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 vote, leading Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Panel to vote against his nomination<\/a>. That marked a reversal from June, when Senate Democrats worked with their GOP counterparts to fast-track Clayton\u2019s confirmation in exchange for renewing a powerful spy law. That deal fell apart<\/a> after Trump intervened, alleging on social media that Democrats weren\u2019t delivering on their end of the deal.<\/p>\n

Open question: <\/b>Though Clayton\u2019s confirmation now looks imminent, Senate action on the spy statute that was supposed to be part of the deal \u2014 Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act \u2014 is not.<\/p>\n

With the House already gone for the August recess, the Senate appears unlikely to vote on Section 702 until September.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jay Clayton is on the verge of becoming President Donald Trump\u2019s next director of national intelligence \u2014 though Democrats won\u2019t be helping him get there. The news: The Senate on Monday voted 51-43 in a party line vote to move forward with Clayton\u2019s nomination, teeing up a final vote as soon as Tuesday to confirm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}