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WASHINGTON — A lot of senators were relieved when President Donald Trump nominated Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, since his prosecutor background made him more qualified for the job than Bill Pulte, the Trump loyalist temporarily holding the position who has made clear he's willing to serve as the president's attack dog.
However, the Justice Department's recent subpoenas against New York Times reporters — authorized by Clayton, but apparently produced at the demand of the White House and an embarrassed Trump — suggest Clayton harbors a similar willingness to act on presidential demands for revenge.
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Progressive groups led by Demand Progress, which opposed Clayton to begin with, highlighted the subpoenas in a pressure campaign against Democratic senators who might be inclined to vote for the nominee.
"A federal prosecutor who will weaponize the grand jury process against reporters — and their sources — to punish disclosures unwelcome to the president has shown the Senate the precise instinct that is disqualifying in a Director of National Intelligence," the groups, which include Indivisible and Reporters Without Borders, wrote in Monday letters to Senate Democratic leaders and members of the Senate intelligence committee.
As the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Clayton authorized subpoenas sent Friday to Times journalists who reported that Trump's controversial new Air Force One jet, a gift from the nation of Qatar, lacks the air defenses of its predecessors. Trump was reportedly "embarrassed and angry" about the press revealing the alleged shortcomings of his big new plane.
The subpoenas sent to the reporters in an apparent effort to uncover their sources within the government are a brazen attack on press freedom.
Trump's weaponization of the government has infuriated even Republican senators, and at times interfered with the president's agenda on Capitol Hill. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), for instance, temporarily blocked the Senate Banking Committee from considering Trump's choice for Federal Reserve chair over the Justice Department's efforts to intimidate its current chair with a criminal investigation earlier this year.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is set to hold a hearing on Clayton's nomination on Wednesday. It would take opposition from at least one Republican to derail the confirmation.
Trump announced Clayton's nomination last month amid an uproar from Republican senators over his choice of Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. The law says anyone nominated to the job "shall have extensive national security expertise." Pulte, originally nominated to direct the Federal Housing Finance Agency — a position he still holds — has no national security experience. His only qualification seems to have been his willingness to use his FHFA role to attack Trump's enemies with bogus mortgage fraud allegations.
Trump directed Clayton not to appear at an earlier confirmation hearing in an apparent effort to give Pulte more time as director. Meanwhile, the backlash in the Senate against Pulte has prevented lawmakers from reauthorizing an important section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
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The progressive groups opposing Clayton have kept their focus on Democrats, especially Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the intelligence committee's top Democrat and a key ally of spy agencies.
"Rewarding an official who is actively executing the White House's war on an independent press with the keys to the Intelligence Community would be a catastrophic mistake," the groups said.
A spokesperson for Warner said senators would grill Clayton at his hearing.
"Mr. Clayton can expect a thorough confirmation hearing and will have to answer tough questions about his qualifications, his judgment, and his commitment to preserving the independence of the Intelligence Community," the spokesperson said in an email.
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