Trump plans to nominate US Attorney Jay Clayton to be national intelligence director

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he intends to nominate Jay Clayton, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as Director of National Intelligence.

Trump announced the nomination on social media amid pressure from Congress to name a permanent replacement for Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned last month. Trump has faced intense criticism over his decision to appoint Bill Bolte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as acting administrator. The job oversees coordination between 18 intelligence agencies.

The situation led to a crisis in Congress after Democrats said they would refuse to renew foreign intelligence powers unless Trump withdraws Bolte’s nomination and appoints a permanent nominee.

“Few people anywhere in the legal community are as respected as Jay,” Trump wrote. “I encourage the US Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible.”

As U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Clayton oversees the Justice Department’s largest and most prestigious prosecutors’ offices, with a broad portfolio ranging from terrorism and espionage cases to security fraud and public corruption.

He assumed his duties as interim US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who resigned in February after refusing to implement the Justice Department’s orders to drop corruption charges against the city’s mayor, Eric Adams. The case was eventually dropped after Washington prosecutors filed a motion with the judge.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., says the Senate could move “fairly quickly” to confirm Clayton as director of national intelligence if the White House files its paperwork soon.

He praised Clayton after Trump said on social media that he would nominate him for the job, saying he had a “great reputation.”

Democrats are blocking the renewal of a key surveillance law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, in protest of Trump’s decision to temporarily tap Bolte. They say they will not support extending the law, which expires at midnight Friday, until Trump withdraws Bolte’s appointment.

Trump previously said that Bolte would take office on June 19. It is unclear whether the Senate will move quickly enough to confirm Clayton before that date.

“I don’t know what realism is, but we will explore its limits,” Thune said.

Clayton appeared Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” where he raised questions about the integrity of California’s elections. Trump claimed without evidence that the state’s slow vote count in the recent primaries meant the vote was fraudulent.

“The American people are right to question that,” Clayton said, adding that delays in results increase the chances of fraud.

He worked his way through his 14-month tenure in the Southern District of New York without running afoul of federal judges in the nation’s busiest courthouses, unlike his counterparts in upstate New York and New Jersey. After his interim term expired 120 days later, the Southern District judges appointed him U.S. Attorney.

Clayton was sworn in as U.S. attorney in April 2025 on the same day three prosecutors resigned, saying they felt pressured to admit wrongdoing or be remorseful about prosecuting the now-dismissed corruption case against then-New York Mayor Eric Adams.

Then, weeks later, the office had to contend with controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s firing of one of its most respected and successful prosecutors, Maureen Comey. She claims she was fired because of Trump’s hatred of her father, former FBI Director James Comey.

Under Clayton, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office facilitated the release of thousands of pages of court records from the trials of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell — documents made public as part of the Justice Department’s release of records related to the late sex offender and his longtime close friend.

Clayton submitted documents to the court explaining the process the government followed in releasing the materials.

Clayton also oversaw the trial of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Maduro’s wife, Celia Flores, on drug trafficking charges.

Trump stressed Bolte’s appointment as acting director, although he emphasized that it would be a short-term job. The president said he wants Bolte to reduce the size of his position, which has already been significantly reduced in his second term.

Gabbard resigned on May 22, due to her husband’s cancer diagnosis.

Trump said last week that he was interviewing five candidates to permanently lead the agency, and that all of them had national security backgrounds.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Michael Sisak and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.