Senate Intelligence Chairman
“While today’s hearing is now unfortunately postponed, I look forward to proceeding with his confirmation in the near future,” Cotton said in a social media post. He said the president had directed Clayton not to attend.
Cotton had earlier announced that he planned to proceed with the Clayton hearing “unless the president directs him not to appear or withdraws his nomination,” despite an early morning missive from Trump saying the hearing would be canceled.
Trump called for the Senate to delay confirming Clayton, who is US attorney for the Southern District of New York, until the nominee to replace Clayton is confirmed. Trump announced the nomination of Sullivan & Cromwell partner James McDonald for that post last week, but that process requires sign off from New York’s senators.
Senate Republicans had planned to confirm Clayton as soon as Thursday in an effort to then unlock support to extend a key spy powers tool. Senate Democrats had said they were waiting to assess Clayton’s hearing performance before deciding whether to agree to expedite the confirmation.
Sen.
“The president’s latest intervention only underscores a simple reality: the biggest obstacle to resolving these issues has not been Senate Democrats or Senate Republicans. It has been the chaos and confusion coming from the White House itself,” Warner said.
Housing official Bill Pulte is on track to take over as acting director on June 19, which senators were working to block by installing Clayton before the end of the week. Democrats have said they’ll oppose reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which lapsed last week, if Pulte is in charge of the intelligence community.
Trump in his post also reiterated that he wouldn’t approve a renewal of FISA until the Senate passes his voter ID bill. Republicans have repeatedly said they don’t have the votes to advance that measure.
(Updates headline and paragraphs 1-3 to reflect hearing postponement.)