Susan Collins Votes to Advance Trump Lackey Jay Clayton for US Intelligence Chief

Sen. Susan Collins, widely seen as the most vulnerable Republican senator up for reelection in November, voted on Monday to advance President Donald Trump's pick to lead the US intelligence community as he faced opposition from former national security officials and press freedom organizations.

Monday's 51-43 vote along party lines all but guarantees that Jay Clayton, currently the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, will be confirmed as director of national intelligence on Tuesday.

Collins (R-Maine), who is commonly portrayed as a moderate despite almost always voting with Trump, waved away Clayton's election denial during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month, when he refused to say Trump lost in 2020.

"The Office of the Director of National Intelligence does not certify elections, and he made very clear over and over again that Joe Biden had been certified as the winner of the election," Collins told reporters after the hearing. (When facing questions under oath, Trump nominees and officials often say Biden was "certified" as the 2020 winner to avoid directly contradicting the president's false claim that the election was stolen.)

Collins, who is running for a sixth Senate term, went on to say she believes Clayton "brings the experience" to the role and "did a good job" during his confirmation hearing.

Monday's procedural vote came as hundreds of former US national security and intelligence officials issued an open letter opposing Clayton's nomination, warning that he "has consistently shown an unwillingness to draw clear lines between the interests of the intelligence community and the political interests of the president who nominated him."

"Equally troubling is Mr. Clayton’s defense, during his hearing, of subpoenas issued to four journalists at The New York Times while he served as United States attorney for the Southern District of New York," the letter states. "The director of national intelligence sits at the intersection of secrecy and accountability, deciding what the public may know about the government’s most sensitive activities. A nominee who justifies forcing journalists to testify, instead of recognizing the First Amendment’s protections for a free press, does not demonstrate the sound judgment required for the office."

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), which also opposes Clayton's nomination, argued Monday that Clayton appears to have lied to lawmakers during his testimony about the subpoenas for Times journalists. The subpoenas targeted journalists who reported on the new Air Force One, a $400 million luxury jet donated by Qatar.

During his Senate testimony, Clayton insisted that he followed "the procedures we have in place to protect the First Amendment and protect the freedom of the press" prior to signing the subpoenas. But Trevor Timm, FPF's executive director, wrote Monday that "this was likely impossible."

"Given the Times’ story came out on a Wednesday and the subpoenas were issued on a Friday (after an hourslong White House meeting discussing the case with FBI Director Kash Patel), there was almost no way 'all reasonable attempts' were made before the subpoenas were issued. These investigations usually take months," Timm wrote. "It sure seemed like false testimony to us."

"But on Friday, the Department of Justice itself seems to have confirmed that Clayton lied to Congress," Timm noted. "In a court hearing in the Times subpoena case, a federal judge castigated government lawyers for an hour for making a multitude of errors when issuing the subpoenas, misleading the court, and not following the law... The DOJ didn’t even attempt to argue they took any investigative steps before issuing the subpoenas. Instead, they claimed there was an “exception” to that rule that allowed them to bypass it entirely, which left the judge flabbergasted."

"Clayton should be immediately called back to the Senate to answer for his seemingly false statement," he added.