The Senate just confirmed Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence.
Democrats said they’d play ball on a critical national security program once Pulte was gone — and now Pulte is gone.
But Chuck Schumer and his caucus are already moving the goalposts, and what they’re doing to Section 702 of FISA tells you everything about how they actually feel about warrantless government spying on Americans.
Clayton Confirmed, Pulte Out, Goalposts Moved
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not appear destined for a quick reauthorization, even after Jay Clayton was confirmed as Director of National Intelligence. Senate Republicans scheduled Clayton’s confirmation unusually fast following his nomination because they faced pressure to reauthorize Section 702 — a warrantless government spying tool — after it lapsed on June 12.
The Senate confirmed Walter “Jay” Clayton to be President Donald Trump’s new Director of National Intelligence in a party-line vote of 51-47, with no Democrats joining Republicans.
Clayton replaces Bill Pulte, whose temporary appointment riled many Democrats after the resignation of former DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) called Clayton a “proven leader,” pointing to his high-profile work as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, including prosecuting terrorists and helping to indict Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro.
“Jay Clayton’s record inspires confidence in the type of DNI that he will be,” Thune said on the Senate floor.
Senate Democrats initially voted against reauthorizing Section 702 in response to Trump tapping Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte to be acting DNI, though they did not appear willing to support reauthorizing it anytime soon even after the upper chamber confirmed Clayton. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would not consider passing Section 702 until Pulte was officially out of office.
Pulte is now out. And Schumer is still not ready.
When asked whether Senate Democrats would support reauthorizing Section 702 now that Jay Clayton is confirmed, Schumer replied: “Well, first we have to make sure [acting DNI Bill] Pulte is out, and second, many of us want to get 702 enacted, but it needs some reforms.”
That’s not a firm yes. That’s a stall.
Warren Says No. Murphy Says No. The Pattern Is Clear.
When asked if she would support Section 702 after Pulte’s exit, Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren replied simply: “No.”
Democratic Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told reporters he would still not support Section 702 because it has “underlying problems,” naming the lack of a warrant requirement as an example. “I have underlying problems with the way Section 702 is designed,” Murphy said.
So Democrats spent weeks claiming their opposition was about Pulte. Pulte is gone. And their answer is still no. That tells you something.
Thune fumed that Democrats failed to back Clayton, noting it was disdain for Pulte that pushed the party to refuse to reauthorize Section 702. The law allows the government to spy on foreigners located abroad and has been lapsed since it expired June 12.
“We will have a permanent director of national intelligence in place shortly. And I hope this will encourage my colleagues to stop blocking the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” Thune said.
That hope may be misplaced.
The Republicans Who Said No Too — And Why It Matters
Here’s the part of the story that doesn’t fit the usual partisan script.
Republican Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rick Scott of Florida, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, and Eric Schmitt of Missouri joined Democrats in voting against a June procedural vote to renew Section 702.
Section 702 allows the government to collect and search American citizens’ data without a warrant if they were in contact with targeted noncitizens located outside of the US. It facilitates tracking foreign intelligence, cyber threats, and terrorism, which often sweeps up Americans’ data in the process.
Lee stated that the reauthorization failed to pass because it did not require the government to obtain a warrant before spying on Americans.
That is a principled position. The FBI has a documented record of abusing this exact authority. A Department of Justice inspector general’s report found “significant inaccuracies” in the FBI applications for FISA warrants against a Trump campaign adviser, and the DOJ later conceded that two of the four orders were invalid.
In 2024, Trump called on Republicans to “KILL FISA” because it was used illegally to spy on his campaign.
And he was right to say it. The government doesn’t get to demand trust it hasn’t earned. Every senator who demanded a warrant requirement before signing off on reauthorization was doing exactly what their constituents sent them to Washington, DC to do — protect American citizens from a surveillance apparatus that has already proven it can’t be trusted with unchecked authority.
The same Democratic caucus whose cooperation is required for the 60-vote Senate cloture threshold needed to revive Section 702 is the one that allowed it to lapse on June 12, 2026 — a program that the government says accounts for more than 60 percent of the President’s Daily Brief.
Think about that. Democrats used a national security program as a bargaining chip over a personnel dispute. And now that the personnel dispute is resolved, they’re inventing new reasons to keep the program dark.
The move caused all Democrats, with the exception of Senator John Fetterman, to vote against moving forward with consideration of the FISA authorization — despite the fact that some, including Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner, had previously been supportive of FISA reauthorization.
Warner, for his part, had kind words for Clayton before the confirmation hearing and then turned on him afterward. Warner said he was “very disappointed with a number of Mr. Clayton’s answers — it’s not in many ways reflective of the person that I’ve worked with over the years.” He acknowledged that “some of my initial questions, Clayton said what I wanted to hear in terms of the importance of classification of information, speaking truth to power,” but still voted no.
That’s a strange way to treat someone you previously praised. The charitable read is that Clayton’s hearing changed Warner’s mind. The less charitable read is that Senate Democrats never had any intention of cooperating, and the Pulte excuse was always just that — an excuse.
What nobody in Washington, DC wants to say plainly is this: Section 702 is genuinely controversial on the merits, and the senators who demanded a warrant requirement before reauthorization were not wrong to do so. The program has been used to vacuum up Americans’ private communications. It has been used against a presidential campaign. A judge identified roughly 278,000 improper searches on Americans in the FISA database in 2022 alone, according to reporting by Senator Hawley’s office.
The question before the Senate isn’t really about Jay Clayton. It never was. It’s about whether Congress will put meaningful guardrails on a surveillance tool that the intelligence community treats as its birthright — or whether it will rubber-stamp the whole thing again and hope nobody notices the next time the FBI decides to run a search on someone they don’t like.
Republicans who want a clean reauthorization need 60 votes. They don’t have them. Democrats who say they want reforms haven’t written them. And the program stays dark while everyone argues about process.
That’s not a coincidence. That’s a Senate.
Even if Democrats relent, it is unclear if Trump would sign a reauthorization. He said in a June social media post delaying Clayton’s nomination that he would not sign the FISA renewal without his legislation requiring proof of citizenship for all voters.
So the President who once called for killing FISA now wants it back — but only bundled with the SAVE Act. The Democrats who once supported it now want reforms they haven’t specified. And a handful of Republican senators who have been consistent on the warrant question for years are being told their concerns are inconvenient.
Everybody in this story has a reason to keep the fight going. The only people without a seat at the table are the ordinary Americans whose phone calls and emails get swept up in the database while the Senate negotiates.
Sources: Daily Caller News Foundation; Roll Call; The Hill; Fox News; ABC News; BizPac Review; American Tribune; Capitalism Institute; CBS News; Sen. Josh Hawley press release; Sen. John Thune press release
