By Patricia Zengerle and Erin Banco
WASHINGTON, June 17 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said a Senate hearing on his nominee to lead U.S. intelligence, Jay Clayton, should be postponed, throwing plans for a swift confirmation into doubt just hours before the session.
Republicans had been pushing for rapid Senate approval of Clayton, the top U.S. attorney for Manhattan, whom Trump nominated less than a week ago as director of national intelligence (DNI) amid a political backlash over the loyalist he picked to fill the role temporarily.
That close ally, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, has no national security experience, raising concerns even among some Republicans that he could “weaponize” intelligence against Trump’s perceived political foes.
Trump then nominated James McDonald to replace Clayton as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the most powerful prosecutors in the country. McDonald needs Senate approval for that role.
Trump, in Evian, France, for a G7 summit, said in an overnight social media post that he did not want to remove Clayton from his post until McDonald was in place.
He said Pulte would remain as acting DNI in the meantime, adding that his fellow Republicans had agreed with Democrats to remove Pulte as acting spy chief in return for the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
“However, the Republicans moved so fast with the hearings of the Great Jay Clayton … that Pulte would be gone before the (Democrats) would vote on FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act),” he said, claiming that Democrats now say they would vote against FISA.
“Not complicated, actually, the Republicans fell into a trap,” he wrote.
Trump also reiterated that he would not approve the renewal of FISA without passage of his Save America Act, which would require proof of citizenship for voting.
Democrats had said they would reserve judgment on Clayton until his hearing, and on Tuesday signaled they planned to question him closely.
TIMING UNCLEAR
The hearing was still posted on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s website early on Wednesday, and representatives for the panel could not be immediately reached for comment.
Trump’s choice of Clayton to oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies had been greeted with relief in Washington. While he lacks deep national security experience, he is broadly respected across party lines.
“I favor a full vetting … a thorough examination of all of the issues,” Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a senior Democratic member of the panel, told reporters earlier.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York had said Democrats would decide how to proceed only after the hearing.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and other Republicans had said they wanted Democrats to agree to waive Senate rules to allow a vote on Clayton as soon as this week.
Thune told a news conference on Tuesday that Clayton is “eminently qualified” and that his position as U.S. attorney meant that he deals with intelligence matters.
APPOINTMENT TIED TO SURVEILLANCE LAW
A swift confirmation could also help pave the way for the renewal of Section 702 of the FISA, which allows law enforcement to collect foreign intelligence that can include information about Americans without judicial authorization.
Democrats had said they would withhold the votes to renew Section 702 while Pulte was acting DNI.
“It needs to be fixed quickly, and I hope that the Democrats will work with us in order to make that happen,” Thune said.
Clayton’s current role in Manhattan is one of the most coveted positions for prosecutors in the Justice Department. His office is overseeing the case against former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was seized in a lightning raid on January 3.
Clayton could face questions about Maduro at the hearing, as well as comments he made on television shortly before his nomination suggesting there may have been fraud in counting votes in the Los Angeles mayoral race, a claim not supported by evidence.
Trump has recently repeated similar claims about the election and recycled unproven claims that the 2020 presidential race was stolen from him, which Democrats warn could be a sign he will seek to interfere in future elections.
It remains unclear whether Pulte, the federal housing regulator, will spend any time as interim director after Tulsi Gabbard’s last day on June 19. Gabbard, a former Democrat with limited intelligence experience, had been accused by Democrats of advancing Trump’s political agenda and promoting debunked election claims.
Clayton also is likely to be closely questioned about plans to sharply cut staffing of the DNI’s office, or even eliminate it completely. Trump had said that he wanted Pulte to make cuts during his time as interim director.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Erin Banco. Additional reporting by David Morgan and Susan Heavey in Washington and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru. Editing by Don Durfee, Sanjeev Miglani and Mark Potter)
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