Wrong person at the wrong time: Bill Pulte and America’s intelligence gap

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President Trump has named Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as acting director of National Intelligence to replace the retiring Tulsi Gabbard.

Pulte will keep his housing posts and brings no known experience in national security to a job whose entire purpose is to pull threat information together across the government so that all the dots are connected. Because the appointment is in an acting capacity, it sidesteps Senate confirmation.

This summer, the World Cup comes to the U.S. Major international sporting events have always drawn not only fans but also global attention, enormous crowds and malefactors determined to do harm.

Stadiums, transit lines, hotels and fan zones all become part of the security picture, and protecting them depends on an intelligence community that can spot threats early. It is therefore alarming that, weeks before the world arrives, the joint commander will be someone with no background in the work.

What makes it even more dangerous is the state of the agency he now inherits. Gabbard presided over a hollowing out of the national intelligence workforce. On her watch, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a critical post within her office, resigned and has not been replaced. The intelligence function at the Department of Homeland Security is on life support as well, just as the threat picture is widening.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continues to inspire lone-actor terrorist attacks across the West. Russian and Chinese cyber-intrusions into our critical infrastructure have become routine. And homegrown radicalization is accelerating. The recent attack on a San Diego mosque by two radicalized teenagers is only the latest example. Fusing these threat streams into a single picture is precisely what the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created to do — and precisely what is not happening today.

I was ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee when the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act creating this position was passed. It was based on the successful reorganization of the Pentagon in the 1980s by legislation called “Goldwater-Nichols” after its bipartisan sponsors. The act was also bipartisan, endorsed by President George W. Bush and signed into law. We have not had an attack on the scale of 9/11 on U.S. soil since our bill became law in 2004. That record is no accident, and it is now at risk.

Installing Pulte this way compounds the danger. There is speculation that the administration will use the vacancy to sideline the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act altogether, and an acting director with no intelligence background and a full-time housing job is in no position to defend it. That could devastate the coordination the law was built to ensure, at a moment when technology is rapidly changing how threats are identified and pursued. Failure to integrate intelligence collection led to 9/11, and it would be no less catastrophic now.

The country needs a director who puts country first and brings a strong intelligence and management record, a seasoned leader who can rebuild the agency and restore its morale. Pulte meets none of these tests. Running mortgage giants is not preparation for directing the nation’s spy agencies, and holding both jobs at once guarantees that neither gets the focus it requires.

The acting designation is itself part of the problem. It lets Trump bypass the Senate, the very vetting that a post this sensitive demands. Congress should insist on a qualified permanent nominee and confirm that person on a bipartisan basis, as it failed to do with Gabbard.

Will Congress rise to the occasion? Will those in the administration who know what is needed prevail over others who just want a loyalist? Will our country be protected? These are questions that need answers now.

Former Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) served nine terms in Congress and was ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee from 2001 to 2006.

Wrong person at the wrong time: Bill Pulte and America’s intelligence gap

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