Why Did Trump Cave on Intel Chief? It Wasn’t to Save Key Legislation.

The president’s preference for who fills the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reportedly comes down to a casual disregard for the role in its entirety.

Donald Trump tapped Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, on Thursday as his pick for Tulsi Gabbard’s permanent replacement. It was a shocking about-face for the typically stubborn commander in chief: Trump had earlier this week doubled down on his temporary pick for the job, real estate developer Bill Pulte, though his nomination quickly became a headache in Congress.

Lawmakers argued that Pulte’s appointment, even just as acting DNI, was effectively illegal, as his resume lacked requirements for the job that had been written into the law.

To prevent Pulte becoming permanent DNI, Democrats blocked efforts to renew FISA Section 702, a statute that allows federal agencies such as the NSA and the CIA to surveil people without warrants, which is set to expire Friday.

Clayton rose to the top of a second round of considerations to, in part, “quell all the bitching,” one administration official told Politico Friday.

Other Hill staffers speculated to the publication that Trump may not have understood—or cared about—the tight timeline that Congress was facing with regard to the FISA section renewal. The whole ordeal may have just been another irritant to a president that has little interest in the office.

Trump has “always hated the ODNI role,” one Capitol Hill aide told Politico.

If he passes muster with the FBI and the Senate, Clayton will enter ODNI with zero relevant experience in national security. He has previously worked as a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, providing counsel on corporate crisis management. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s law school. He was similarly handed his role atop the Southern District of New York without any prosecutorial experience.

Yet Clayton has passed countless litmus tests proving his loyalty to the MAGA movement. He has seeded doubt in America’s election integrity, defended Trump’s $1.8 billion taxpayer-bankrolled slush fund for the president’s aggrieved political allies, and unquestioningly done the president’s bidding in the Southern District of New York.

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi tasked Clayton with probing Jeffrey Epstein’s social connections—so long as they tied back to former Democratic President Bill Clinton, former Obama administration adviser Larry Summers, and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.

President Donald Trump and his allies are plotting to push Congress to void his past two impeachments from the record—even though it’s not constitutionally possible.

A measure to expunge Trump’s 2019 and 2021 impeachments likely wouldn’t be considered until after the midterm elections, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal Thursday night.

“It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump told the Journal. “It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.”

Experts said that the resolution would have little legal weight considering that the Constitution has no mechanism for expunging impeachments, and Republican lawmakers noted that it wouldn’t be easy to get enough support to pass the bill.

The president’s plan to erase his impeachments gained new momentum in April, after the Trump administration published new documents related to his first impeachment that MAGA claimed undermined the credibility of the witnesses.

In a show of fealty, California Representative Darrell Issa introduced legislation to have Trump’s impeachments “expunged as if such Articles had never passed the full House of Representatives.” Issa has claimed the president was “wrongfully accused” of the crimes that had him impeached.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has taken up that mantle this time around. “I think it makes a lot of sense the more the evidence comes out, the more we know they really were sham impeachments,” he told the Journal. “They make a very compelling case that it should be expunged from the record, because it was a hyper-partisan attack job.”

Johnson said that wiping Trump’s impeachment record was “not an order of first priority” but it was a priority all the same.

In the case of his 2019 impeachment, there is a literal transcript of Trump’s phone call to the Ukrainian government demanding they dig up dirt on Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election. As for his second impeachment, the president most certainly incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Issa’s measure has attracted 23 co-sponsors, but not every Republican seems interested in getting on board. Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is retiring, suggested it was political suicide for his party. “Maybe they’ve given up on holding the majority? It’s silly. What happened is history.”

But his impeachments are clearly still a sore spot for the grievance-addled president. On Thursday, Trump posted a lengthy screed attacking Representative Jamie Raskin, who led the House’s legal effort to impeach the president in 2021.

The division of the Department of Justice that was supposed to have handled President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS—and the subsequent settlement that created a slush fund for his allies—claims to have no communication records related to it.

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a progressive watchdog organization, filed a Freedom of Information request with the DOJ, and in response, they were told that the DOJ “did not locate the case you have cited” within the DOJ’s Civil Division’s case management system.

“We have further inquired with Civil Division staff in the Office of the Assistant Attorney General, and they have advised that they are not aware of any responsive records within the Civil Division pertaining to the case you have cited. Accordingly, we have located no responsive records,” wrote Brian Flannigan, division counsel for records and information in the DOJ, in a response letter.

Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization sued the IRS in January for $10 billion in damages over the leak of their tax returns by a former IRS contractor during Trump’s first term. A settlement was reached last month that created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for anyone who believes they were unfairly prosecuted for their political beliefs, essentially the president’s allies who were prosecuted under the Biden administration. As part of the settlement, the IRS also pledged not to audit the Trump family or businesses now or at any point in the future.

The case of the president essentially suing an agency in his own government was controversial enough, but the settlement was heavily criticized, not only for the creation of a slush fund for Trump to disburse to his allies, but also for protecting the Trumps and their assets from ever facing scrutiny over their taxes.

The fact that the DOJ claims to have no records relating to communication about the settlement suggests that either it is lying or negotiations were conducted outside of the legal bodies that should have handled them. All of this is yet more proof of Trump using the presidency to settle grievances, enrich himself and his family, and disregard the law at the same time at the expense of the American people.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and UFC CEO Dana White signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday cementing a public-private partnership between the mixed martial arts company and the U.S. government.

Trump will likely financially benefit from this deal due to his investment in its parent company, TKO Group Holdings. While conservative media has sold this as “cage fights for diplomacy,” the actual agreement mostly sees the UFC partnering with the State Department’s “sports diplomacy” programs at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. That program is responsible for “citizen exchanges” and other cultural events but spent more than $52 million last year—giving the UFC a major leg-up compared to other sports leagues.

The MOU also comes just three days before the UFC fight night on the White House lawn on Trump’s birthday.

“UFC is the world’s leading mixed martial arts organization. As an American-founded organization, the UFC has grown into a major global sports platform, reflecting U.S. leadership in modern combat sports promotion, athletic performance standards, and international event production,” the State Department wrote in a press release. “Its events are broadcast worldwide and contribute to the United States’ broader cultural and sports influence through professional competition and athlete development.”

Nowhere in the press release was Trump’s investment in the UFC mentioned.

While the UFC has certainly gained serious traction over the years, it is not without its blemishes—White has been criticized for years for making millions upon millions of dollars while his union-less, battered fighters often need second jobs to keep the lights on.

President Trump’s announcement that a deal has been reached with Iran and approved by “all parties involved” is confusing everyone.

The Israeli government is not aware that a finalized deal has been reached, an official told the country’s Channel 12, and it’s unclear where the Iranian government stands. Fars, a semiofficial news agency affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, quoted an “informed source close to Iran’s negotiation team,” who said that “no text for a preliminary memorandum of understanding with the United States has been approved.”

Axios, citing unnamed sources, reported that Iran and Qatari mediators believed they had come up with a written agreement Wednesday that the U.S. would accept. Those sources said that Iran told different countries on Thursday that an agreement was reached in principle but was still waiting for Iranian leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s final approval.

Trump announced on Truth Social Thursday afternoon that the deal had been approved by “the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others.” He made things even weirder shortly later in the Oval Office, saying that a signing ceremony could take place with Iran this weekend in Europe, which he would not be able to attend due to the planned UFC fight on the White House lawn Sunday.

“The [Strait of Hormuz] will be open as soon as we sign, which could be soon, very soon, maybe over the weekend in Europe. I won’t be able to be there, but, uh, [JD Vance] will be there, vice president, and some of the people, [Steve Witkoff] did a great job, [Jared Kushner],” Trump said, mentioning the people he had tasked with negotiating with Iran.

Does this mean a deal is imminent, or is Trump just blowing hot air again? From what the president is saying, it’s either done or very close, but there’s no clear confirmation from Iran, and U.S. ally Israel doesn’t seem to be aware of anything, either. For the sake of international stability, one would expect everyone to be on the same page. But unfortunately, this is how Trump has chosen to operate.