On Thursday, President Donald Trump nominated<\/a> U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence. Last year, former Attorney General Pam Bondi assigned Clayton<\/a> to carry out Trump\u2019s directive to investigate Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s ties to Democrats\u2014an investigation that legal experts have warned<\/a> could be a pretext to withhold some of the Epstein files. After the recent elections in California, Clayton also recently encouraged<\/a> conspiracy theories about voter fraud saying \u201cthe American people are right to question it.\u201d <\/p> After Trump\u2019s announcement, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said<\/a> he has \u201cgreat respect\u201d for Clayton and Rep. Jim Himes (D-NH) said<\/a> Clayton\u2019s record \u201cwill make him a terrific DNI.\u201d Both Warner<\/a> and Himes<\/a> have worked with Republican leadership to hand Trump warrantless surveillance powers through Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.<\/p> The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka<\/strong>:<\/p> \u201cNo Democrat should find solace in the fact that Trump has once again named a partisan hatchet man to be the nation\u2019s top spy. Just as Trump asked Bill Pulte to investigate Letitia James and Adam Schiff, he also has asked Jay Clayton to investigate Democrats\u2019 ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The fact that Sen. Warner and Rep. Himes would gush so effusively over Clayton shows their clear desire to sabotage a deal on FISA privacy reforms and hand President Trump the unfettered surveillance powers that he is asking for. Both Pulte and Clayton have already shown that they will carry out Trump\u2019s directive to weaponize the government against his political enemies. Putting either of them at ODNI at a time when Trump is asking for warrantless surveillance powers through FISA is too big of a risk.\u201d<\/p> A robust set of resources on the need for privacy reforms for FISA are available here<\/a> and here<\/a>, and additional background, context, polling, reform demands, resources and other information is available here<\/a>. A video on Pulte from Jessica Craven can be found here<\/a> and a sample of the ways FISA has been used to wrongfully target protesters, journalists, politicians and others is available here<\/a>. An explainer on why FISA won\u2019t actually \u201cgo dark\u201d on June 12 can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>