Jay Clayton DNI Nomination – The Steady State Opposition letter
The Steady State
July 22, 2026
The Honorable John Thune
Majority Leader
United States Senate
511 Dirksen Senate Office
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Chuck Schumer
Minority Leader
United States Senate
322 Hart Senate Office
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Tom Cotton
Chairman
Senate Committee on Intelligence
United States Senate
326 Russell Senate Office
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Mark R. Warner
Vice Chairman
Senate Committee on Intelligence
United States Senate
703 Hart Senate Office
Washington, DC 20510
Subject: Opposing the Nomination of Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence
Dear Majority Leader Thune, Minority Leader Schumer, Chairman Cotton and Vice Chairman Warner,
We write to express our strong and unequivocal opposition to the nomination of Jay Clayton to serve as Director of National Intelligence of the United States.
The Steady State has repeatedly warned that one of the clearest signs of growing authoritarianism abroad is when a nation’s security services shift from defending the country against foreign threats to protecting and advancing the interests of their political leader. Throughout history, democratic governments have failed when intelligence services, law enforcement agencies, and internal security organizations cease to serve the nation and instead become instruments of personal loyalty and political power. Jay Clayton’s nomination to be Director of National Intelligence presents precisely that danger and is the central issue of our opposition.
The Director of National Intelligence is not merely the coordinator of the nation’s intelligence agencies. The Director is the President’s principal intelligence advisor and a statutory member to the National Security Council, participating in the highest-level deliberations concerning threats to the nation, counterterrorism, foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, cybersecurity, and national emergencies. The Intelligence Director oversees the eighteen elements of the Intelligence Community, sets national collection and analytic priorities, controls the President’s Daily Brief, and issues guidelines governing signals intelligence, human intelligence, and counterintelligence activities; programs that touch the lives of American citizens. Few officials possess greater authority over the nation’s most sensitive security apparatus.
These powers are central to the intelligence operations of the United States. They are also among the powers most susceptible to abuse by an autocrat. The authorities to collect intelligence, conduct surveillance, brief the President, coordinate with foreign services, and control the flow of sensitive information to Congress and the public are legitimate only when exercised in service of the Constitution and the rule of law. When those authorities are directed toward protecting a leader, suppressing inconvenient findings, or rewarding political loyalty, they become a threat not only to civil liberties, but to constitutional government itself. For that reason, the character, judgment, independence, and constitutional fidelity of the Director of National Intelligence are matters of national security.
The Steady State raises serious doubts about whether Mr. Clayton would bring that independence to the office, based on his previous actions. Those doubts are not based on isolated incidents. They emerge from a pattern of conduct and testimony in which Mr. Clayton 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. The circumstances of the nomination itself are cause for concern. Mr. Clayton’s confirmation hearing was originally scheduled for June, only for President Trump to delay his confirmation last minute. This allowed Bill Pulte, acting National Intelligence Director with no intelligence background who used the position to pursue perceived adversaries of the President, to remain in the role for several additional weeks. Mr. Clayton has since distanced himself from Mr. Pulte’s specific actions, but he has offered the Committee little assurance that he would restore the office’s independence rather than continue to act as Bill Pulte has.
At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Clayton repeatedly refused to confirm that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. For a nominee who would assume direct responsibility for the Intelligence Community’s election security assessments, that refusal is not simply a minor rhetorical denial. It signals a strong willingness to subordinate factual, nonpartisan analysis to the political preferences of the President, precisely the characteristics this Committee must guard against in any nominee for this office. Mr. Clayton told the Committee he was unaware that his prospective predecessor had been involved in a law enforcement action at a Georgia election office earlier this year. Whether or not the answer was candid, it reflects poorly on his preparation for a position that exists to ensure the President and Congress receive a clear-eyed picture of threats to the integrity of American elections and institutions.
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 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.
Taken together, these facts reveal more than an unfinished record. They reveal a nominee who has repeatedly declined the chances to draw a clear line between service to the Constitution and service to the President personally. The Director of National Intelligence is entrusted with providing the government’s most honest and rigorous assessment of threats to the nation, free from political distortion. Mr. Clayton’s testimony to date does not inspire confidence that he would do so when that assessment proved inconvenient to the President.
The danger is magnified because the Director of National Intelligence oversees institutions that possess extraordinary access to sensitive information and a great capacity to shape what the public and Congress are permitted to know. A Director unwilling to draw clear lines between political loyalty and constitutional duty does not merely threaten the integrity of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He threatens the independence of the Intelligence Community as a whole and the constitutional safeguards that protect Americans from the abuse of state power.
The Steady State believes that safeguarding democratic institutions requires leaders whose loyalty is to the Constitution and the rule of law, not to any individual officeholder. Mr. Clayton’s record to date has not demonstrated that loyalty. His nomination reinforces the very concern that The Steady State has warned about repeatedly: the gradual transformation of the nation’s intelligence services from protectors of the constitutional order into instruments for the elevation and protection of a political leader.
For these reasons, we urge the United States Senate to reject the nomination of Jay Clayton to serve as Director of National Intelligence.
Respectfully,
Steven A. Cash
Executive Director
The Steady State
212.685.9660
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