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Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I speak today in opposition to the nomination of Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence. He has repeated baseless conspiracy theories about American elections, refused to acknowledge who won the 2020 election, and participated in an abusive investigation of American journalists while providing false testimony to Congress about that investigation.

It has been clear for months that, under this administration, the main qualification to be DNI is the willingness to use the position to spread conspiracy theories about elections and to help Donald Trump make it harder for Americans to vote. Even before his nomination, Mr. Clayton decided he would show how eager he is to serve as Trump's election conspiracy wingman.

Now, he is the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. Yet we all saw him on television talking about elections in California and insisting, without any evidence, that America was doing a ``terrible job'' with election integrity. I was especially alarmed by his conspiracy mongering about vote-by-mail. That is how my home State of Oregon has been voting successfully for years.

On June 8, just a few days before he was nominated, Mr. Clayton was on television talking about how ``one group'' was using vote-by-mail ``dishonestly.'' That is ridiculous. The first two Senators elected by mail were a Democrat and a Republican.

Vote-by-mail benefits rural voters who live far away from polling stations. Vote-by-mail benefits older people who may not be able to drive. It has never been partisan--certainly not until Donald Trump, aided by people like Jay Clayton, made it a part of the attack on American democracy.

Mr. Clayton didn't offer a shred of evidence to support his conspiracy theories, so I asked him point-blank: Who were these mythical election bandits? In his responses to written questions, he said he was only asking questions. That is the stock-in-trade for conspiracy theorists. The moment they are asked to provide some evidence--any evidence--for claims, they fall back on: I was just asking questions. That is my excuse.

It is fundamentally dishonest. It is also behavior that shouldn't be tolerated in someone responsible for providing Congress and the public assessments based on actual intelligence.

Now, as we all saw during his disastrous nomination hearing, Mr. Clayton also refused to acknowledge the simple fact about Joe Biden winning the 2020 election. Everybody knows the truth here. The only reason to avoid the question is to satisfy the Trump ego. But that is what Mr. Clayton did, signaling to Donald Trump and the whole country that he is never going to stand up to Donald Trump--not ever.

I am also deeply concerned about Mr. Clayton's role in the abusive subpoenas issued to the journalists at the New York Times. Mr. Clayton is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District. He signed the subpoenas. He is responsible for this effort to intimidate the press. He is also responsible for the numerous mistakes and errors committed by the attorneys under him, which even included a subpoena to a journalist's mother. This whole mess came out in a court hearing last week, where not only did the judge criticize the government attorneys, but the government itself--the government itself--acknowledged its numerous errors and mistakes before eventually withdrawing the subpoenas.

All that is bad enough, but it also raises serious questions about Mr. Clayton's testimony to the Intelligence Committee that I sit on.

Eight days before that court hearing in which the government acknowledged its mistakes, Mr. Clayton testified repeatedly that the government had followed all the required procedures.

That was obviously false. The only question is whether Mr. Clayton knew it, at the time, that his testimony was false. If he didn't know, then he had no idea what his own office is doing, despite having signed the subpoena, which isn't a great justification for somebody to lead the intelligence agencies.

If he did know, then he may have willfully misled Congress. This is a vitally important question that the Senate should continue to look at, rather than rushing to confirm Mr. Clayton.

Now, there are other examples of how Mr. Clayton is willing to say anything in defense of Donald Trump. In May, he went on television and defended the decision to immunize Donald Trump and his family from a tax audit. He said: It was a ``pretty good deal for the government.''

Well, it was certainly a good deal for Donald Trump and the family, but it wasn't so great for everyday Americans who don't control the IRS. And it wasn't a good deal for government either.

In fact, a judge recently found that the so-called ``settlement'' was ``improper,'' had ``no viable basis in law or fact,'' and was an abdication of the government's ``responsibility to zealously defend the interests of the United States.''

Yet Mr. Clayton was happy to go on television and defend the corruption.

Finally, as U.S. attorney, Mr. Clayton has been the lead of the administration's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. He was responsible for the inexcusable release of information on Epstein's victims.

As for his other actions related to the investigation in the Epstein files, he has refused to say. Someday, there will be transparency about how this administration handled the Epstein case, and Mr. Clayton's full role--his full role--is going to come out.

Jay Clayton has no business being confirmed for this role. He has repeatedly demonstrated his eagerness to support Donald Trump's conspiracy theories and corruption. He participated in the abuse of the justice system to try to intimidate the press, and he has provided false testimony to Congress during his own confirmation hearing.

Tonight, I urge Senators to oppose this nomination.

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