Trump upends Senate path on surveillance authority
In early morning post, Trump hits pause on a DNI pick linked to Section 702 reauthorization
President Donald Trump on Wednesday complicated Senate Republican plans to quickly revive a key surveillance authority, delaying a scheduled confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton and pressing for the inclusion of a controversial voter ID measure.
Trump, in an early morning social media post, said he was “cancelling” the hearing for Clayton to become Director of National Intelligence, which was one of several moving parts in the push to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Clayton was scheduled to testify this afternoon in front of the Senate’s Intelligence panel, but Trump said that “will not be going forward until Jamie McDonald is approved to be U.S. Attorney.”
Clayton is currently leading the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Trump said in the post he did not want Clayton to leave that position until McDonald is in place.
Senate Republicans had moved quickly to confirm Clayton as DNI in part because Trump had named Bill Pulte as acting DNI and said he would start that role Friday.
Democrats said Pulte was unfit to oversee sensitive intelligence programs and last week voted against measures that would reauthorize Section 702. The statutory authority for the program expired Friday.
In the post, Trump accused Democrats of breaking a deal on Section 702 and said Bill Pulte “will remain” as the acting DNI.
Trump also further linked his approval of Section 702 to the passage of the SAVE America Act, the GOP’s marquee voter ID and election overhaul bill.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said there are not the votes for that legislation to pass in the Senate. “It really does come down to arithmetic, you just either have the votes, or you don’t,” Thune said last week during a sit-down interview.
“I think in this job there are a lot of things you just don’t control, and timing of White House announcements is one of them,” Thune also said. “Some of the things that have happened the last few weeks have completely thrown a wrench into our ability to execute on getting some of the things done that we need to get done. It has been particularly challenging.”
