Trump upends careful compromise on intel chief, plunging GOP into disarray

By Sarah Ferris, Ted Barrett, Kevin Liptak, CNN

Geneva (CNN) — Republicans on Capitol Hill believed they’d found a way to dump President Donald Trump’s controversial pick for temporary intelligence chief — while defusing a major fight with Democrats over a significant national security bill.

Then came Trump’s middle-of-the-night missive from Switzerland.

“I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it. Not complicated, actually, the Republicans fell into a trap,” the president wrote early Wednesday.

“We are cancelling the Senate Hearing RE: DNI today, and will not be going forward until Jamie McDonald is approved to be U.S. Attorney,” he added. “In the meantime, Bill Pulte will remain as the Acting Director of National Intelligence.”

Trump’s Truth Social post on Wednesday blew up weeks of careful party strategy to usher in a compromise pick, Jay Clayton, to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies. Instead, Trump made clear he’s now seeking to keep that contentious nominee — MAGA loyalist Pulte — in an interim position for even longer. Further complicating matters, the president also demanded the passage of his signature voter ID bill attached to the must-pass national security bill, which is already days overdue.

The move stunned Senate Republican leaders, who were just hours away from a key committee hearing for Trump’s pick. Clayton informed some members of the committee he was asked by the president to not show up for the hearing, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Senate GOP leaders were ultimately forced to cancel that afternoon hearing just ahead of its start, after initially vowing to hold it. In response, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chairman issued a rare statement of disapproval at Trump’s move, calling it “regrettable that the president has directed Jay Clayton not to appear at his confirmation hearing today.”

It’s not yet clear when GOP leaders might try to hold another hearing for Clayton. But so far, it appears that Trump will succeed in his attempt to slow-walk the nomination — which would allow his hand-chosen temporary chief, Pulte, to formally begin the role Friday.

The situation has flummoxed many Republicans and left Congress in an uncomfortable limbo over the status of Trump’s nominee, as well as the lapsed security measure, known as section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which authorizes the nation’s foreign spying powers designed to thwart terrorist attacks.

Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune was unable to answer questions on Wednesday morning about Clayton’s fate — and instead said he is still “awaiting clarity” from the White House about next steps.

Canceling a Senate hearing would typically be decided by the committee holding the hearing — in this case, the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was not immediately clear whether Trump had spoken to the panel’s chairman, Sen. Tom Cotton, before posting his message, but the Arkansas Republican initially said the hearing would proceed Wednesday afternoon without formal intervention by the president. (He was forced to backtrack later just hours later.)

“We’ll just have to take it a day at a time until we get more clarity on kind of what the White House’s position is on this,” Thune said, met by a crush of reporters as he entered the US Capitol.

Thune did not answer questions about whether he’s spoken with the president since the move. When asked why Trump was connecting the issues of voter ID to his intelligence nominee, Thune answered: “Good question.”

Democrats, meanwhile, were irate over Trump’s move. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat, described Trump’s intervention as “an extraordinary display of dysfunction from a president who seems determined to turn America’s national security into a political bargaining chip” — a key signal that the party won’t lend any votes to reauthorize the lapsed surveillance bill anytime soon.

Trump posted that he wanted the Senate to cancel the nomination hearing for Clayton. Later, Cotton – who had first held his ground, noting Clayton was a “pending nominee” before his panel – said that Trump had ordered him not to show, a highly unusual move.

CNN has reached out to the White House for more on Trump’s decision.

One of Trump’s allies in Congress, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, defended Trump’s move, arguing that the public wanted to see the president’s voter ID bill become law.

“If we actually voted up here based on what the American public wanted, this would pass in a heartbeat. We’d pass it by noon today,” Scott said. But he wouldn’t say whether he’d encourage Trump to veto the spy powers bill if his voter ID bill isn’t attached, as the president suggested overnight: “I’ll let him decide that.”

Asked if Trump was complicating Congress’s ability to govern with his last-minute demands, Scott said: “He’s talking about stuff that the American public wants. … He’s talking about what we ought to be doing.”

Senate GOP leaders had spent the last week trying to quell tensions in their party, and from Democrats, after Trump announced Pulte, who has no demonstrated national security experience, as the temporary intelligence chief. Pulte, notably, has used his current position atop a federal housing agency to go after Trump’s perceived rivals.

Ultimately, party leaders and the White House reached an agreement last week — Trump picked Clayton, Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, as the agency’s permanent successor.

But Trump never withdrew Pulte, whose tenure was slated to begin June 19. And Democrats never backed down on their demands, saying Trump needed to dump Pulte for good, or they would not help reauthorize the nation’s spy powers.

Now Democrats are blaming Trump for further inflating the situation and dragging out the intel law lapse.

“What we’re seeing is real-time chaos in the intelligence community,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said. “Bill Pulte remaining in that job is absolutely intolerable.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Kristen Holmes, Lauren Fox, Alison Main and Ellis Kim contributed to this report.