Senate Confirms Clayton as DNI Amid Impartiality Concerns

The most troubling thing about the Senate’s confirmation of Jay Clayton as the new director of national intelligence (DNI) is not that he fails to meet the most important qualification, which is experience in national security. It’s also not that he is such a coward that he does not dare to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, which does not bode well for his ability to speak truth to power.

Instead, it is that he is still a far better choice to lead DNI than his two predecessors — conspiracy theorist Tulsi Gabbard and hatchet man Bill Pulte.

The former (ab)used the job to further Trump’s Big Lie, and we have no idea yet how much damage the latter has done in his brief stint as the interim director.

What we do know is that Pulte, who had none of the relevant (and statutorily required) experience, announced on Tuesday that he further slashed the intelligence community’s workforce.

“Good News! In addition to the Historic DECLASSIFICATIONS (Transparency!) by the President, we are, this morning, Executing a 5th and Near Final Round of TERMINATIONS, an approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago,” he excitedly announced. “The Intelligence Community must protect the American people, NOT the political whims of the bloated and corrupt elite class.”

If only that were true. Under Gabbard and Pulte, catering to the whims of Trump is exactly what the intelligence community has done.

The big question now is whether that will continue under Clayton.

Because of Pulte’s history of weaponizing the government against the president’s perceived enemies, Democrats were initially ecstatic to replace him as quickly as possible (Trump prevented this by not allowing Clayton to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, presumably to give his lackey more time to eliminate the undesirables from the intelligence community).

However, that enthusiasm quickly waned when the new DNI first made unsubstantiated claims about voter integrity during an appearance on CNBC, and then repeatedly refused to state that Trump lost the 2020 election when he testified before the Senate.

It is those two things above all else that cost Clayton bipartisan support. He was confirmed along party lines on Tuesday night.

Following the vote, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) blasted the new DNI for “cast[ing] doubt on the validity of votes cast in California’s elections and help[ing] propagate a false impression of fraud in the vote count.”

He added that, “given the actions of the last DNI and her involvement in seizing ballots from Fulton County, GA, the last thing we need is another DNI to politicize the office and involve himself in matters that are well beyond the scope of the intelligence agencies’ jurisdictions.”

Schiff argued that Clayton ventured into election denialism to please Trump, which calls into question whether he can be objective and deliver intelligence to the president that he does not want to hear.

“His record and his answers under oath to the Senate make it clear Clayton is not a leader who can be counted upon to make decisions on the serious national security threats facing our country, if those decisions would bring him into conflict with the personal or political preferences of the President,” the senator stated.

All of these are valid concerns, which is why it is so scary that Clayton is still a much better choice than Gabbard and Pulte were.

It also highlights the damage to the US that the GOP-controlled Senate has done by rubberstamping unqualified nominees to please Trump. Some of that is already apparent. For example, it clearly wasn’t a good idea to put a former morning show host and war crime apologist in charge of the Pentagon or to give the president’s personal lawyer a top job at the Department of Justice.

However, the harm that stooges like Gabbard and Pulte inflicted on the intelligence community may not be revealed for some time, if ever.