President Trump’s critics would have you believe that William John Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is not qualified to serve as the director of national intelligence, the job that Trump gave him on an acting basis this morning. They correctly note that Pulte, the heir to a home-construction company, has no background in national security, and that this would seem to disqualify him from serving as the nation’s most senior intelligence official, on the grounds of not only common sense but also the law, which requires that the DNI have “extensive national security experience.”
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But what if the naysayers are looking at things all wrong? The president has shown no sign that he wants a DNI who can coordinate the work of 18 intelligence agencies and harness the power of a multibillion-dollar global-espionage network to provide senior government leaders the best up-to-the-minute information about threats to U.S. national security. No, what Trump has made very clear is that he wants a DNI who will selectively declassify government documents that help fuel conspiracy theories, use the authorities of the state to enact political retribution against his enemies, and try to persuade Americans that Venezuela and maybe the Democratic Party are rigging elections by fiddling with voting machines.
From that perspective, Bill Pulte is even better suited for the job than the woman he’s replacing. In her 15-month tenure as the DNI, the former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabard merely accused “deep-state” actors of launching a “yearslong coup” against Trump, which apparently continued while he was out of office and may still be happening. Pulte, meanwhile, made criminal referrals to the Justice Department, alleging mortgage fraud by some of Trump's most reviled political adversaries, including Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, Senator Adam Schiff, former New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former Representative Eric Swalwell.
Never mind that none of Pulte’s targets has gone to prison, and that some insist he is attempting to criminalize paperwork errors. Pulte has been a tireless fighter for the president, so committed to the MAGA cause that some administration colleagues nicknamed him “Little Trump.” He has, on occasion, even turned on those who he suspects aren’t serving the boss well, provoking their anger. “Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly told Pulte at a dinner attended by administration officials and presidential advisers last year. “I’m gonna punch you in your fucking face.”
Pulte was a stronger minister of political vengeance as the self-appointed chair of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than Gabbard ever was as the nation’s top spy, and he had access only to mortgage records. Trump might be imagining what Pulte could do when he gets his hands on the most highly classified secrets in the government.
The reactions to Pulte’s appointment among current and former intelligence officials I talked with, in the United States and overseas, ranged from disbelief to resignation. Gabbard was widely regarded as an unserious leader and political loyalist. No one imagined that Trump would replace her with someone better qualified. But Pulte managed to defy even those low expectations.
When Marc Polymeropoulos read the news on X this morning, “I thought it was a joke,” the retired CIA officer told me. “And then my phone blew up” with messages from former colleagues, some of them outraged, some despondent. “We were nearly all worried about the possibility of a highly weaponized DNI. Some, myself included, also thought this was designed to get rid” of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Polymeropoulos said.
Democratic lawmakers were predictably appalled by Pulte’s selection. “The concern is not only that Mr. Pulte lacks the ‘extensive national security experience’ required by statute for the job,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “It is that he appears to have been selected precisely because the White House believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need.”
Even the Senate majority leader, John Thune, wasn’t enthused. He told reporters: “We don’t need a weaponized DNI; we need professionals there.” Should Trump nominate Pulte as the permanent occupant of the office, the Republican from South Dakota said, he will face “a lengthy road ahead of him.”
This all assumes, of course, that Trump intends to nominate Pulte. But he has given no indication that he will. Trump has a long history of putting officials in senior positions on an acting basis, effectively bypassing the Senate’s advice-and-consent role. Pulte can still pack a lot into a temporary stint. In just three months as the acting DNI in Trump’s first term, Ric Grenell managed to fire career officials, restructure the office, and declassify documents about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, a blitz that so alienated lawmakers, he would never have stood a chance at confirmation if Trump had nominated him. (Trump instead tapped John Ratcliffe, who also faced questions about his qualifications at the time, but is now the director of the CIA.)
Pulte doesn’t need the Senate’s blessing to carry out and broaden a campaign that Gabbard started, tendentiously releasing classified information, misrepresenting it in public, and rooting out the supposed deep state. And he’ll do it all on a part-time basis. Trump said Pulte will continue running the housing agency; acting as the DNI will be his side hustle.
Trump has mused to friends and advisers about disbanding the office, which has never really fulfilled the vision that Congress laid out for it two decades ago, after the 9/11 attacks. The DNI was supposed to ensure that intelligence agencies collaborated and never again failed to connect the dots about major threats to the nation. In practice, the office has added another layer to an already very large bureaucracy, which has managed through trial and error to figure out how to work collectively. Today, members of both parties think that the office needs reform, and that it is perhaps redundant.
Gabbard won the support of Senate Republicans, who were skeptical of her own slim credentials, by promising to reduce the headcount in her office. She did that, albeit in a highly politicized manner. Democrats were outraged, but they’re not exactly lining up to save the office or give it more authority. By appointing an unqualified acting director, Trump may succeed in diminishing the ODNI’s reputation so much that a future Democratic president would find it easier to abolish the office altogether. Pulte might make history twice, as the least qualified DNI—and the last.