As director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte has no national security background. But that didn’t stop President Donald Trump from selecting him as acting Director of National Intelligence — the nation’s top spy job, overseeing 18 intelligence agencies.
In this conversation, self-proclaimed “Canadian raconteur” Dean Blundell, I talked about how inside the intel community, one person tells me the response has been “mostly omg and wtf.”
Another person said that this decision is bringing up fear and concern. A third person said, “This is at best a dumb choice and at worse a dangerous one, given Pulte’s willingness to exploit confidential mortgage information against perceived enemies of the president. [Former intel officers] fear his access to sensitive intelligence that he may publicly disclose, harming sources and methods. And they fear his having access to sensitive collection capabilities that could be ordered to be used against Americans.”
Notably, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said nothing about Pulte. He simply told journalists, “I have no observations on the matter.” Meanwhile ranking Democrat Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), introduced an amendment to block Pulte from being Director of National Intelligence on Thursday night.
Pulte has 210 days to serve as acting director — a tactic that Trump has used across the board since his first term to install rather unorthodox figures without Senate confirmation. “If even half of my Republican colleagues that have privately voiced concerns about him vote for this… it should pass,” Warner said. But about two later, only three or four Republicans backed him, he reported.
Some Republicans, like Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Tom Tillis (R-North Carolina), have publicly said they would not support Pulte’s nomination.
Before Trump chose Pulte, I was told that CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis had wanted the job. There was also some RUMINT (rumors intelligence) that CIA Director John Ratcliffe could dual hat it.
Beyond Pulte floating an unpopular concept of a 50-year mortgage, he accused Trump’s perceived enemies of committing mortgage fraud, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California). He used his social media presence to encourage Trump to fire then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell. And MS Now has aired a video of Pulte accepting an award in the form of a dildo that apparently said Pulte “f***s but only the young.”
I also talked to Dean about how the ODNI grew out of the 9/11 Commission as a “job nobody wanted,” its simmering tensions with the CIA, DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s falling out of favor with Trump, and how Pulte follows a lineage of Trump-picked DNIs/acting DNIs who have selectively declassified intelligence to please the president.
