Maine Beacon71%
Collins backs Trump’s new intelligence director who refused to say who won in 2020 46%
By Beacon Staff0%
7/30/2026, 12:00:07 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Ad Hominem, Politically Left Leaning Bias, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 52.9% saturation with 202 hits. Analysis detected 745 faulty-reasoning hits from 382 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 47.8% and a BS Rank of 46% (12,095 of 22,280 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 54.30% of the article peer group.
Sen.
Susan Collins joined every Senate Republican Tuesday night to confirm Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence, despite the nominee’s repeated refusal to say whether they believed President Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
“I’m asking one more time: Who won the 2020 election?”
asked Sen.
Angus King during Clayton’s senate confirmation hearing before the Intelligence Committee.
“I’m here to talk about my qualifications,” replied Clayton, who had refused to answer the same question several times already.
“One of your qualifications is you told us you’re going to tell the truth to power, and you won’t answer a very simple question,” said King.
The Senate confirmed Clayton on a 51-47 party-line vote Tuesday evening, with every Democrat opposed.
Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, will now oversee coordination across all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies and deliver the president’s daily intelligence briefing.
During the hearing, Clayton also defended his office’s decision to subpoena New York Times reporters over their coverage of the Qatari jet gifted to Trump for use as Air Force One.
Sen.
Ron Wyden of Oregon confronted him over the subpoenas at the hearing, calling them as an assault on journalists and the First Amendment.
The Justice Department has since withdrawn them.
Asked about Clayton’s refusal to acknowledge the 2020 result, Collins told reporters that “the Office of the Director of National Intelligence does not certify elections.”
While that may be technically true, Trump has used the office of the DNI to pursue investigations into his conspiracy theories about the outcome of the 2020 election.
“Once again, Susan Collins is rubber-stamping a Trump nominee for a major national security position despite his refusal to acknowledge basic realities like the fact that the 2020 election was not stolen,” said Maine Democratic Party spokesperson Misha Linnehan, following the vote.
“Trump is installing radical, right-wing lackeys at every level of our government, and Susan Collins has been right there with him as she voted with Trump 96% of the time.”
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