Democrats wary over DNI nominee’s stances on election security

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

A swift confirmation of Jay Clayton as the next director of National Intelligence appears less likely after multiple Democrats left his Wednesday confirmation hearing dissatisfied with his responses.

While the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing began cordially, tensions rose when Democrats became increasingly unsatisfied with the U.S. attorney’s responses to lawmakers’ questions, particularly to questions regarding election integrity.

Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner, D-Virginia, who prior to the hearing had called Clayton “a capable public servant,” said as the meeting adjourned that he felt “bitterly disappointed.”

Formerly the chairman of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission from 2017 to 2020, Clayton’s career has focused largely on financial security matters rather than national security.

“During my service as chairman of the SEC, I advised the intelligence community on various matters and directly confronted issues with national security implications, notably, Chinese influence and exploitation of our markets and maintaining economic stability during the COVID-19 shutdowns,” Clayton told lawmakers. “And in the private sector, I also engaged in a broad range of national security matters.”

He also served as chairman of private equity firm Apollo Global Management in March 2021, resigning in 2025 to serve as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Since April, Clayton has headed the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee within the Department of Justice.

With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, committee lawmakers underscored the role of the office in safeguarding election integrity against foreign interference.

Clayton assured Democratic lawmakers who condemned the FBI’s January seizure of 2020 election ballots from Fulton County that he believes “the role of the intelligence community is to provide information, not to engage in policy.”

He argued that federal agencies need to improve data processing, particularly election data, though he stopped short of calling voter fraud a widespread problem when Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, asked him.

“The audit trail that we have available for our elections in a number of places is not the kind of audit trail that you would expect in something that is this important,” Clayton said. “I don’t think we can say definitively whether there is or is not until we have better processes … I would love for the American people to have incredible confidence in the integrity of our elections.”

Unsatisfied by that answer, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, asked Clayton point-blank whether he thinks Joe Biden won the 2020 election. President Donald Trump still maintains that mass voter fraud helped Biden become president.

“I’m not going to engage in theater,” replied Clayton, who had earlier in the hearing told Warner, “I’m not an election denier. Joe Biden was certified as the president of the United States.”

When Ossoff pressed further, and Clayton repeatedly said, “I’ve already answered,” the Georgia lawmaker grew frustrated.

“You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America’s intelligence community,” Ossoff said. “Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions?”

Clayton also answered Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, vaguely when asked whether the Biden administration’s legal prosecutions of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protesters were fair.

“Let me say this: Any physical violence against law enforcement is completely objectionable,” Clayton said.

When Heinrich asked whether Jan. 6 protesters should hypothetically have access to the DOJ’s discarded “Anti Weaponization Fund,” Clayton simply replied that “if people have been inappropriately and intentionally subject to prosecution, they should have recourse.”

Republican Senate leaders had hoped the widely respected Clayton could sail through his confirmation.

Democrats in Congress have refused to reauthorize a critical government surveillance authority, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, until temporary DNI and Trump loyalist Bill Pulte is removed.

Clayton’s responses, however, seem to have made at least some Democratic senators think twice about confirming him.

“I’ve known Mr. Clayton for some time. I’ve worked with him. I’ve worked with him closely when he was at the SEC. But I am bitterly disappointed,” Warner said before the hearing concluded. “I will have follow-up questions.”