Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence has set off alarm bells in Washington, as a staunch Trump loyalist with little government experience who has shown an eagerness to retaliate against the president’s political rivals will now sit atop the US intelligence apparatus.
Pulte, whose grandfather started PulteGroup, a major residential homebuilder, had no government experience before Trump appointed him to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), an under-the-radar regulator that oversees the government lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Shortly after arriving at the agency, he began to gut it, firing sizable chunks of the boards of both and appointing himself as chair. Pulte had no government experience before being appointed to the role and does not have national intelligence experience.
Pulte’s nickname among some is “Little Trump”, the Wall Street Journal reported last year, and he made his way into the president’s orbit with a membership at Mar-a-Lago and substantial donations to Trump’s campaign groups. He has a penchant for pushing ideas, like a 50-year-mortgage, that are said to have enraged even some of Trump’s advisers. One person who had seen one of Pulte’s pitches to Trump told Politico last year that Pulte didn’t vet ideas before going straight to the president. White House officials reportedly told staffers at Trump’s golf club in Virginia not to let Pulte catch the president unattended, the Journal reported.
“Rather than selecting a respected national security professional capable of delivering independent judgments, the president has chosen an official who has demonstrated not just willingness but eagerness to use the authorities of government to pursue political retribution,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, said in a statement. “Americans have already seen Mr Pulte use the powers of his office at the Federal Housing Finance Agency to pursue the president’s grievances and lend credibility to dubious prosecutions of President Trump’s perceived political opponents.
“Elevating him to oversee the Intelligence Community makes clear that this president is not looking for an intelligence leader who will follow the facts or speak truth to power, but rather someone who will be willing to shape intelligence around the president’s wishes, regardless of the cost to the American people,” he added.
Pulte will be serving in an acting capacity, but would need to be confirmed by the Senate to become the permanent director of national intelligence – where he could face further hurdles from his own party.
John Thune, the Senate majority leader, told reporters that “we don’t need a weaponized” national intelligence director and Pulte would have “a lengthy road ahead of him” if he were nominated to take the post on a permanent basis.
“If they nominate him to take the position permanently, he’ll have to go through a confirmation process and hearings and everything else,” Thune said.
Asked about fears of Pulte pursuing Trump’s political opponents after scrutinization of mortgage records of the president’s adversaries in his previous role, Thune added: “We don’t need a weaponized [director of national intelligence], we need professionals there.”
Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine and a senior member of the Senate intelligence committee, said: “I don’t know whether he has an intel background before that. I truly don’t know him at all.”
James Lankford, another Republican who serves on the committee, also voiced skepticism, saying: “I don’t know any of his background experience on intel. I don’t know at this point.”
On the question of weaponization, he added: “That should be a neutral role.”
Pulte burst into the national spotlight last year when he referred the Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, New York attorney general, Letitia James, former California representative Eric Swalwell and California senator Adam Schiff for mortgage fraud. All allegations were seen as weak. He also reportedly pushed the top federal prosecutor in Virginia to seek an indictment against James and encouraged Trump to fire a career prosecutor leading the office who resisted bringing charges. Trump eventually heeded that advice and appointed a loyalist, who subsequently secured an indictment against James. The case was later dismissed after a judge ruled the prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed.
“At a time when the U.S. is at war and the threats to national security loom large, we need a Director of National Intelligence who is knowledgeable, experienced, and respected. Bill Pulte is none of these things. He politicized and weaponized the housing agencies and will do the same in the intelligence community. And Americans will be less safe as a result,” Schiff posted on X on Tuesday.
Individual mortgage information is highly protected and Pulte reportedly removed ethics officials at Fannie Mae who were looking into whether Pulte had improperly accessed the information. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’s non-partisan investigative agency, opened an investigation into Pulte in December.
Thom Tillis, a North Carolina senator who is retiring after refusing to support Trump’s signature domestic policy bill last year, noted Pulte’s major role in the Cook investigation, which he opposed. “I got a real issue with that,” Tillis told Punchbowl News.
Also skeptical was John Cornyn, the Texas senator who last week lost his primary to Ken Paxton, a Trump-endorsed attorney general. “I don’t see any evidence of his qualifications for that job, but I’m willing to listen,” Cornyn told Semafor.
