#national intelligence

Jacob Knutson at Democracy Docket:

Senate Republicans confirmed Jay Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, as the new head of the U.S. intelligence community, a position that’s become central to President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine U.S. elections. With the Senate’s 51-47 vote Tuesday, Clayton will take control of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) after Trump has oriented the agency toward supporting his false election claims.  Clayton will replace Bill Pulte, a top housing finance official who has served as acting director of national intelligence (DNI) since former DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation in June. Under Pulte and Gabbard, ODNI has probed election conspiracy theories and helped declassify intelligence to bolster Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Clayton, a securities lawyer by trade who has no known intelligence background, assumes the DNI role after making alarming claims on U.S. elections in recent weeks.  Though he said he was “not an election denier” during his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Clayton repeatedly declined to clearly state who won the 2020 election.  Instead, he said “Biden was certified as the president of the United States,” which is a carefully worded statement several Trump nominees have used to avoid explicitly saying Biden won — and, by extension, that Trump lost the 2020 contest.

Days before Trump nominated him for DNI, Clayton perpetuated misinformation about California primary elections. Specifically, he took aim at California’s mail voting laws and, without providing evidence, implied that an unspecified “group” was abusing mail voting to throw elections in the state. Clayton made the claims as Trump and prominent anti-voting figures were spreading false claims about California’s prolonged vote count to push for the SAVE America Act and new restrictions on mail voting, which has been a leading target of the election denial movement. 

The US Senate vote 51-47 on party lines to confirm Jay Clayton as the next DNI, replacing Tulsi Gabbard as the Senate-confirmed holder while Bill Pulte filled in for the interim.

See Also:

AP, via HuffPost: Senate Confirms Jay Clayton As Nation's Intelligence Director

Bill Pulte is a horror, but he doesn't look much better to me. Both are likely to interfere with the elections.

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Vaughn Hillyard and David Rohde at MS NOW:

Dozens of intelligence officials began receiving notice of their terminations on Thursday under Bill Pulte, the new acting director of national intelligence. An intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to potential reprisal, told MS NOW that the individuals being removed by the Trump administration are officials “who they believe are deep state.” Intelligence leadership alleges that the fired workers have not provided complete pictures of available intelligence, the official said. The moves come after Pulte’s elimination last month of six political appointees who served under Tulsi Gabbard, the previous director of national intelligence. Four former senior intelligence officials told MS NOW that they had never heard of intelligence officials withholding information from officials above them. “The premise is absurd,” one of the former officials said.

Another of the former officials questioned how Pulte, who has no experience working in intelligence, would be able to make such a determination so quickly. “I have a real question of how he would know this. This isn’t a guy who is familiar with intelligence,” said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing concerns about retaliation. “How is he going to get to the bottom of this and rely on any information with a matter of fidelity? It would be like me taking over a hospital and firing dozens of surgeons in a matter of days.” Both former officials noted that Pulte’s office itself does not collect intelligence. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence receives it from the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and 15 other agencies. He said that CIA Director John Ratcliffe, for example, would know of such a problem.

Brian Tyler Cohen:

Bill Pulte was installed as the new acting director of national intelligence on Friday, and by Monday the “deep state” firings had already begun. This guy has absolutely no experience in intelligence. He’s a housing industry nepo baby (Grandpa runs a massive construction firm), and he seems to think the skills are transferrable as he’s already started gutting all 18 spy agencies.

Naturally, the guy tapped to lead the nation’s intelligence agencies has zero experience in intelligence, the military, or even a proper security clearance ahead of assuming the position. What he does have, though, is a documented history of using government power to go after Trump’s enemies. Look at his track record while running the Federal Housing Finance Agency: going after Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Lisa Cook, Jerome Powell, accusing them all of mortgage fraud. How does that qualify him to run the government’s entire intelligence apparatus? Great question. It doesn’t. Because keeping the country safe from terrorist attacks, espionage, and cyber-warfare isn’t the job. Wielding government power as a weapon on behalf of Trump against his perceived enemies is. The only qualification that matters to Trump is complete and total fealty to Trump. And Pulte got on his knees to prove it. He lobbied hard for the job. He had strong endorsements behind him, too. Roger Stone allegedly pushed for him. Other MAGA insiders called him a “bulldozer,” which is exactly what Trump is looking for. He wants someone to go in, clean house, and demolish his opponents.

[...]

Section 702 of FISA, which gives us the surveillance authority to monitor foreign threats, just lapsed, and both Democrats and Republicans cited Pulte’s appointment as the reason they blocked its renewal. That means our intelligence agencies are flying partially blind as we’re in the middle of a war with Iran that Trump started, and facing very real threats from Russia and China. The cuts at the National Counterterrorism Center in particular pose a real risk. This is an agency established in the wake of 9/11 that’s responsible for pooling intelligence across agencies. If Pulte succeeds at firing everyone there, we’ve lost exactly the people whose job it is to connect the dots before something happens. Which, ironically enough, is the exact intelligence failure that reportedly led to 9/11 in the first place.