At his Senate confirmation hearing on July 15, 2026, Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence, refused to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Pressed repeatedly by Democrats, he would say only that Biden was “certified” as president.
Sen. Mark Kelly asked directly: “Can you tell me why Joe Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 election?” Sen. Jon Ossoff bore down on the same question, at one point telling Clayton “we can keep doing this” as the nominee declined to name the election's winner. Clayton also skirted questions about his own past election-integrity claims, and about whether a White House official had asked him to subpoena New York Times journalists as part of a claimed national-security investigation, the leak probe over the paper's Air Force One reporting.
If confirmed, Clayton would replace Bill Pulte, whose short run as acting DNI has drawn bipartisan objections over his lack of intelligence experience and his willingness to pursue the president's enemies. The timing sharpened the exchange: the hearing came the day before Trump's scheduled primetime address claiming declassified intelligence shows the 2020 race was compromised, an address Pulte reportedly urged him to give. A DNI nominee who cannot state the result of a settled election is auditioning to run the intelligence community that would be asked to bless the president's revision of it (see Trump's Primetime Address Claims China and the 'Deep State' Rigged 2020. His Own Declassified Documents Show Russia Was the One Helping Him, Trump's New Intelligence Chief Starts Firing Dozens of Officials as Trump Says He Expects Him to 'Find Out Some Things About the Rigged Elections' and The White House Had Patel Run a Leak Investigation Into the Times's Air Force One Reporting, Then Four Reporters Were Subpoenaed).