Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s pick for acting director of national intelligence, showed up at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence a day ahead of schedule on Thursday and immediately began assessing which of the office’s employees to fire, according to sources familiar with the matter. The surprise arrival caught staff off guard, including outgoing director Tulsi Gabbard, who had been given only brief advance notice. Pulte, a 38 year old real estate scion and housing regulator with no intelligence or national security experience, is reportedly eyeing cuts of hundreds of jobs across the 18 agency intelligence community. The move signals an aggressive start to a tenure that has already alarmed Democrats, some Republicans, and career intelligence professionals who view Pulte as unfit for one of the most sensitive posts in government.
The chaos surrounding Pulte’s installation deepened as Trump’s permanent nominee for the role, Jay Clayton, saw his confirmation hearing abruptly postponed on Wednesday after the president declared on Truth Social that he was “cancelling” the session. Trump tied the delay to his demand that Congress attach his SAVE America Act election overhaul to the reauthorization of FISA Section 702, the warrantless surveillance program that expired on Friday. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton initially resisted, stating the hearing would proceed as scheduled, but reversed course within hours, calling it “regrettable” that the president had directed Clayton not to appear. The disarray leaves Pulte as the de facto intelligence chief at a critical moment, with the US and Iran having just signed an interim peace deal and the threat environment remaining acute.
Pulte’s behavior during the transition has only amplified concerns about his suitability for the role. During his only previous briefing with ODNI staff last week, he asked whether he could receive the President’s Daily Briefing at his house, a request that raised alarm bells among intelligence officials given the PDB’s highly classified nature. He also inquired about his security clearance level, whether he had access to a government plane, and requested a protective security detail before even starting the job. Pulte lacked any security clearance granting access to highly classified information before his appointment, a basic prerequisite that career professionals consider non-negotiable. His fixation on travel between Washington, Florida, and Chicago, where he splits his time, and his repeated questions about scheduling have struck observers as oddly disconnected from the gravity of the position.
The political dimension of Pulte’s appointment has drawn the sharpest criticism. At the Federal Housing Finance Agency, he gained Trump’s favor by sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department alleging mortgage fraud against Democrats who had investigated the president, including Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Senator Adam Schiff. Trump has explicitly said Pulte “may find out some things about the rigged elections,” reinforcing fears that the acting DNI will use the office to pursue the president’s false claims of 2020 election fraud, a pursuit that Gabbard already advanced during her tenure, spending eighteen months and untold taxpayer dollars searching for evidence that never materialized. Election law expert David Becker warned that Pulte “has been hand picked to replace her precisely because he too embraces the lies and conspiracy theories while ignoring the evidence.” With Pulte now installed and Clayton’s confirmation in limbo, the intelligence community faces the prospect of being led by a partisan loyalist whose primary qualification appears to be his willingness to weaponize America’s secrets in service of the president’s political agenda.
