Nomination of Walter Clayton

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, on Thursday President Trump nominated Jay Clayton the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to be the Director of National Intelligence. He has an impressive resume with experience in both the public sector and the private sector, and he has the kind of skill set necessary for managing issues as complex and varied as those faced by the Director of National Intelligence.

For some perspective from the other side of the aisle, the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee noted on Thursday, and I quote:

I have known and respected Jay Clayton for many years and believe he is a capable public servant.

Republicans here in the Senate have built a record of acting quickly on the President's nominees, and we are going to do the same with Mr. Clayton. The Senate Intelligence Committee has already announced that it will hold a hearing on Mr. Clayton's nomination this week.

Once he is approved by the committee, it is my intention to bring his nomination to the floor very quickly, and I hope we will have bipartisan support for making that happen.

While we didn't know exactly when it would arrive, we knew a nomination like Mr. Clayton's was coming. How? Because the President made it very clear that his choice of Bill Pulte for Acting Director of National Intelligence was a temporary pick.

Despite this, Democrats decided to hold section 702 of FISA hostage over Mr. Pulte's temporary, short-term appointment. Thanks to their decision, as of Friday, this program authorization has lapsed.

What does that mean? It means the Nation is currently operating without the full capacity of its most critical intelligence-gathering tool. Let that sink in for just a minute. Thanks to Democrats' actions, the Nation is currently operating without the full capacity of its most critical intelligence-gathering tool all over a short-term, temporary Presidential appointment.

You certainly don't have to take my word for it on the importance of the 702 program to the security of our Nation. Let me just read a few quotes from my Democratic colleagues last time we were in danger of having the program authorization lapse. This was from the Democrat leader:

[T]his very important tool for ensuring our national security is going to lapse, and that would be unacceptable.

From the senior Democrat from Delaware, and I quote again:

This program is critical to the security of our nation, and we could not permit it to lapse.

From the senior Democrat from New Mexico, and I quote again:

As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I've learned the vital role that FISA's Section 702 authority plays in bolstering our nation's ability to effectively fight terrorism, disrupt foreign cyberattacks, impede drug trafficking, and protect U.S. troops. For our national security and the safety of the American people, it is simply too important of a tool to let it expire.

Well, just last week the Democrat vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee called section 702, and I quote again:

[O]ne of the most important intelligence tools [that] we have.

And yet despite all this, despite my Democrat colleagues' clear awareness and acknowledgment of the importance of this program, they voted to let the authorization for this program lapse.

And what the consequences of that will be, we cannot fully predict. We do know information secured through this program has been repeatedly used to help protect our Nation and American lives from a range of threats from fentanyl to cyber attacks to terrorism. And that information from this program is used on a near daily basis by those entrusted with the defense of our country.

The Democrat vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has himself referred to the suspension of FISA--and I quote again--``a high-risk proposition.''

So while we can't know the consequences of Democrats' decision to allow section 702 authorization to lapse, we do know it is almost certainly putting our Nation at greater risk. And I hope and pray that my Democrat colleagues will rethink their decision to take this program hostage and to restore this key safeguard of our country's security.

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