WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he is nominating Jay Clayton, the top U.S. attorney for Manhattan, to be the next U.S. spy chief in an apparent bid to quell a political firestorm over his pick to fill the role temporarily.
The decision, however, appeared unlikely to end a refusal by Democrats to provide the votes needed to renew a key foreign surveillance program that expires on Friday unless Trump withdraws Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief. Pulte is a fierce Trump loyalist with no national security experience.
"Pulte has to go. He cannot be in the DNI role. Our national security is too important," Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader from New York, told reporters, referring to the director of national intelligence.
Trump announced his choice of Clayton for permanent DNI in a Truth Social post in which he urged quick Senate confirmation of Clayton to replace Tulsi Gabbard as overseer of the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.
Speaking to reporters, Trump stressed that Pulte would not remain in the position for long.
"He's only there for a little while, he's running it for a short while, while we get a very talented person, Jay Clayton," Trump said.
Clayton is a former lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell who specialized in mergers and capital raising. During Trump's first term, he served as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he developed a reputation as a political moderate who tried to forge consensus with the agency's Democratic commissioners.
Trump in April 2025 nominated Clayton to serve as interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, considered one of the most powerful prosecutorial posts in the country.
His official biography shows that he has no intelligence background and lacks extensive national security experience, a requirement of the law that created the post of DNI after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.
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A person familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters, said that CIA Director John Ratcliffe recommended Clayton to Trump as Gabbard's permanent replacement after the president asked him who should take over from her.
Until Clayton is confirmed, Pulte will lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and oversee personnel cuts that Trump has called for, the person said.
Many lawmakers greeted Trump's announcement with praise for Clayton. But top Democrats said they would continue refusing to provide the votes needed to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act unless Trump withdrew Pulte as acting DNI.
"Before the Senate can take up a FISA extension there needs to be a clear guarantee that Mr. Pulte will not serve as acting DNI," said Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee from Virginia, who called Clayton "a capable public servant."
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday rejected a short-term extension of Section 702 that Trump has sought.
Trump said Pulte, the head of the federal housing agency, would take over as acting director on June 19 to replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned effective June 30.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Erin Banco, David Morgan, Daphne Psaledakis, Katharine Jackson; Editing by Don Durfee, Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)
