Jay Clayton | Golfer, lawyer, spymaster

On a golf course somewhere, U.S. President Donald Trump may have found his next intelligence chief. And with that, a vacancy that has triggered days of controversy in Washington could finally be filled.

On June 11, Mr. Trump announced on Truth Social that he was nominating Jay Clayton, the former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to serve as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). “Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay,” Mr. Trump wrote.

The nomination comes amid two sensitive moments for the White House: one, Congress had been in an uproar over Mr. Trump’s earlier interim pick, Bill Pulte, a housing industry executive with little intelligence experience; two, lawmakers are debating the future of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), one of the most powerful surveillance tools available to U.S. intelligence agencies, which expired on June 12. Put simply, the White House needs Congress on board.

The DNI position became vacant after Tulsi Gabbard resigned in late May, citing personal reasons. Following her departure, Mr. Trump appeared to back away from his controversial push to install Mr. Pulte permanently in the role. Democrats had labelled Mr. Pulte “unqualified” and warned that he would politicise an office meant to coordinate the work of America’s intelligence agencies.

Heavyweight resume

Born on July 11, 1966, Walter Joseph ‘Jay’ Clayton III brings a heavyweight Wall Street resume to a job associated with spies, analysts and national security professionals. A former SEC chairman during Mr. Trump’s first term, he currently serves as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The Manhattan-based office handles everything from terrorism and espionage cases to securities fraud and corruption probes.

Mr. Clayton has spent much of his career moving between government and private practice. Before entering government, he was a partner at the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell and built a successful Wall Street career as a corporate lawyer. Mr. Trump first tapped him to chair the SEC in 2017, during his first term. His tenure at the SEC was marked by a generally pro-business approach, though the agency under his leadership also brought some of the first major enforcement actions involving crypto assets.

It was also under his watch that the SEC pursued a high-profile case against trillionaire and businessman Elon Musk over tweets related to Tesla — years before Mr. Musk bought Twitter.

More recently, as a U.S. Attorney, he has overseen several high-profile investigations and prosecutions, including cases involving Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro (who is currently in U.S. custody) and rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs. He was also tasked with overseeing the federal investigation of the much-discussed Epstein files.

Yet for all his credentials, Mr. Clayton is hardly a conventional intelligence pick. Like Mr. Pulte, he has no operational experience in any of the 18 intelligence agencies overseen by the DNI. The difference, both the critics and supporters alike acknowledge, is that Mr. Clayton has never worked inside the intelligence community; but unlike Mr. Pulte, he arrives with decades of experience running large institutions, conducting sensitive investigations and navigating Washington. One lawmaker remarked that, had the White House settled on Mr. Clayton a week earlier, “a lot of pain might have been avoided”. Another one, more bluntly, said anything is better than Pulte.

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has praised the 59-year-old as a “great talent”, and that nobody has “better credentials”. He and Mr. Clayton are known to share a friendly relationship and have reportedly spent time together on the golf course, perhaps explaining why the story of America’s next intelligence chief may have begun somewhere during that time together.

And now, while his supporters and critics are sharpening their respective arguments, It remains to be seen whether Mr. Clayton will win Senate confirmation.