(AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had suspended a Senate hearing on his own nominee for intelligence chief, in a fresh effort to push Congress to back his bill on voting restrictions. Trump last week picked Jay Clayton, who headed the US securities regulator during the president’s first term, as his next director of national intelligence (DNI). The move came after both Democratic and Republican lawmakers opposed Trump’s interim DNI chief Bill Pulte — a loyalist housing official who was appointed despite having no intelligence background.
But just hours before the hearing for Clayton, Trump said he was postponing it, in a move that makes Pulte effectively certain to stay on for now. That in turn casts doubt over the fate of a key intelligence gathering program known at FISA Section 702, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners overseas. The controversial program expired for the first time last week after Congress rejected a short-term extension, largely over Pulte’s appointment. Trump has now bundled all the issues into one giant fight by saying he will not go ahead with any of it until lawmakers approve his voting reform package, the “SAVE America Act.”
“To add a slight bit of intrigue but, for the Good of the Nation, and the People of our Country, I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it,” Trump said on Truth Social. The act pushed by the Republican — who still regularly airs his false claims that he won the 2020 election — would require photo ID to cast a ballot nationwide, proof of citizenship to register to vote, and other restrictions.
Time is running out on all sides, with Trump’s low approval ratings meaning that the Republicans face the possible loss of control of Congress in midterm elections in November. Trump also said he was determined that Clayton must be replaced by Jamie McDonald as US attorney for the Southern District of New York — one of the most powerful prosecutorial positions in the country. “We are cancelling the Senate Hearing RE: DNI today, and will not be going forward until Jamie McDonald is approved to be US Attorney,” Trump said on his Truth Social network. McDonald is one of Trump’s personal lawyers, but previously served as a federal prosecutor in the New York district.
Trump named Pulte as acting DNI after Tulsi Gabbard, a controversial conspiracy theorist who has previously backed Kremlin talking points, said she was leaving to care for her sick husband. Critics fear that Trump would rely on the DNI to carry out acts of political revenge or interfere with upcoming elections. He has already ordered Pulte to cut jobs in the US intelligence community. In his previous job, Pulte targeted a series of Trump’s foes with allegations of mortgage fraud. Gabbard, meanwhile, got involved in investigations into alleged election fraud despite it being outside her remit. Trump has repeatedly claimed, without foundation, that Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was “stolen” and that the rival party plans to do the same again in this year’s midterms.
– Danny KEMP
© 2024 AFP
