Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, prepares to testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on his nomination to be Director of National Intelligence on July 15, 2026, at the Capitol in Washington.
Ken Cedeno | AFP | Getty Images
Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, refused to say Joe Biden won the 2020 election, claimed he had no knowledge that his predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, participated in the attack on a Georgia election office earlier this year, and defended his subpoena of New York Times reporters during Wednesday’s controversial Senate confirmation hearing.
Clayton, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and current attorney for the Southern District of New York, appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence more than a month after President Trump announced his nomination and weeks after the president abruptly blocked his confirmation hearing scheduled for June.
A month ago, it appeared that Mr. Creighton’s confirmation path would be relatively smooth, but Democrats objected to his comments about the election and his time as U.S. attorney. He remains likely to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate.
Speaking with MS NOW on Tuesday ahead of President Trump’s scheduled Thursday night speech on foreign attempts to subvert the 2020 election, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, slammed Creighton over whether she knew of Gabbard’s presence when she stormed an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, earlier this year.
Creighton said he first learned about Gabbard’s widely reported involvement from Ossoff in a private meeting earlier this week.
“Is it appropriate for the Director of National Intelligence to oversee the execution of domestic search warrants at sensitive election facilities? Yes or no?” Ossoff asked. Clayton didn’t answer.
“Your answers are unreliable. Your testimony is unreliable,” Ossoff said.
During the nearly two-hour hearing, Creighton repeatedly avoided answering who won the 2020 election, instead saying, “I’m not an election denier. Joe Biden was certified.”
At one point, Ossoff called Creighton’s response “disqualifying.”
The committee is scheduled to vote on Creighton’s nomination next week. If the nomination moves forward by the committee, it will be considered by the full Senate.
The process of nominating Clayton as DNI, a role that gives him access to the nation’s most secrets and authority over 18 intelligence agencies, has been marred by controversy thanks to Trump’s actions and the interim appointment of Trump ally Bill Pruitt, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Bipartisan lawmakers have questioned whether Mr. Pulte, who heads FHFA and launched a mortgage-related investigation into President Trump’s opponents, is qualified for the job.
“I can’t think of another example in the history of this committee where a president has put forward a nominee and claimed he would move heaven and earth to move this nominee quickly because of the importance of this office on a bipartisan basis. Then the president decides the Senate is in too much of a hurry with his nominee and puts that nominee on hold,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said Wednesday at Creighton’s. Hearing.
The DNI job began in May when then-director Gabbard announced plans to step down. Pruitt took command later that month, carrying out President Trump’s order to fire dozens of senior intelligence officials.
On the morning of Creighton’s first hearing, Trump told TruthSocial he was suspending the nomination and instructed him not to appear in court. Trump said his hesitation was in part because he wanted Congress to attach controversial election bills that require photo ID provisions and proof of citizenship at registration to an unrelated update to the Foreign Surveillance Act.
Negotiations over the Foreign Surveillance Act, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, broke down after Trump’s appointment of Pulte. The program expired in June after Democrats protested Pruitt’s appointment to the post.
Following Mr. Pulte’s interim appointment, support for Mr. Clayton appeared to be widespread. But he was censured Wednesday by Democrats on a Senate committee.
Sen. Angus King, Imain, asked Clayton about comments he made on CNBC about the California election in which he appeared to suggest possible voter fraud.
“We had a problem, we had a serious problem with voting in America,” Creighton said during an appearance on “Squawk Box” in June. “We’re doing an absolutely terrible job of integrity, and the American people are right to have questions.”
Mr. King asked for an explanation.
“That means the audit trail that we have available in various places for elections is not the kind of audit trail that you would expect for something this important,” Clayton said.
Asked by Martin Luther King whether voter fraud is an issue in U.S. elections, Creighton said, “I don’t think we can definitively say whether voter fraud is an issue until we have a better process.”
Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York last week pressed Mr. Clayton to subpoena New York Times reporters after reporting on security concerns related to the new Air Force One that was gifted to President Trump from Qatar.
Mr. Clayton issued subpoenas, which The New York Times said were delivered on Fridays and, in some cases, to the homes of the reporters in question. The reporters were ordered Wednesday to appear before a grand jury to testify “with respect to alleged violations of federal criminal law.”
Clayton said he could not go into details of the investigation.
“Let me tell you: I am confident that the procedures we have in place to protect the First Amendment and protect the freedom of the press will not result in the intimidation of journalists,” Clayton said.
