Pulte’s first days in office set off alarms with lawmakers

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Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte is already delivering on the controversial tenure feared by critics when President Trump selected him to step into the role.

Pulte began his new job Friday, a federal holiday, but has swiftly been carrying out a desire of Trump’s: laying off staffers at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

It’s unclear how many of the agency’s staff have been let go, but the White House on Tuesday pointed to a June 10 social media post from Trump calling on Pulte, who retains his other job as the head of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, “to execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office.”

With Pulte’s arrival, it’s the first time since the agency was formed in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, that the office has been led by someone with no prior intelligence or national security experience who did not previously have a security clearance.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a video shared Tuesday, saying he and others had “warned about Bill Pulte.”

“Word is he’s starting to fire hundreds, probably without regard to whether they’re valued or not,” Warner added.

“He basically also was asking to take home the presidential daily brief, which includes our most classified information. Taking it to an unsecure location is against the law. This character didn’t even know that, [and] he’s in charge of our intelligence agencies. What he was concerned about is trying to get a private government jet, so we can jet between Chicago, Florida and D.C. — your taxpayer dollars at work,” Warner said, citing reporting from CNN and calling Pulte a “national security threat.”

Pulte previously used his role leading the Federal Housing Finance Agency to make criminal referrals against several of Trump’s political foes, alleging mortgage fraud in a move that raised questions about how he accessed their private data.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) — have expressed fears Pulte will weaponize the agency. However, Pulte’s first moves have largely focused on personnel.

Pulte’s predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, already had claimed to have fired 500 people, or about 30 percent, of the agency. Her moves were aimed at cutting staffing levels in half at the office responsible for coordination among the constellation of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies.

Many of Pulte’s firings, in contrast, are reportedly concentrated in the National Counterterrorism Center.

Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, described the center as serving a vital role.

“There is an operations floor where people from CIA and the ODNI and FBI are staring into screens watching terrorist plots unfold, watching very bad people all over this country. It’s called the National Counterterrorism Center, and it’s inside the ODNI. That’s one of the many, many critical things that the ODNI does,” he said during an appearance on MS NOW.

“If he just starts willy-nilly firing people, it is going to increase the probability that there is a terrorist attack inside the United States.”

Larry Pfeiffer, a Day 1 ODNI staffer and former CIA chief of staff, said the type of widespread firings that appear to be underway should be done through a thoughtful process carried out by knowledgeable people.

“To just then have some guy who has zero experience and that come in on Day 1, just start firing people without any kind of review, adjudication, consultation with people who would know what the right answer is, just seems incredibly reckless and incredibly dangerous,” Pfeiffer told The Hill. “Now, is NCTC too big? Maybe, I don’t know. Is it effective? My answer to that would be we haven’t had a 9/11-scale attack since 9/11, so you know it’s at least doing something.”

“Having some nepo baby real estate guy come in and just willy-nilly make decisions that appear to have no basis in fact seems like a very careless, reckless thing to do.”

The decision was not popular with several lawmakers on the Hill.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called Pulte an “incompetent sycophant” and told reporters he saw the firings in line with the sweeping layoffs previously carried out by Elon Musk.

“My guess is, based on his past experience, it’s just going to be another hot, steaming pile of DOGE s‑‑‑,” Tillis said, referring to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a former House Intelligence Committee chair and a subject of one of Pulte’s criminal referrals, echoed Warner in saying his actions vindicated Democrats’ warnings.

“We feared that Bill Pulte would do nothing but damage to our national security. And now that fear is realized, as he makes massive cuts to the counter-terrorism workforce. What could possibly go wrong?” he wrote on the social platform X.

Other lawmakers welcomed Pulte.

“As a former Army intelligence officer, I appreciate that Bill @Pulte is an outsider who will bring a different perspective as the Director of National Intelligence. President Trump has proven that outsiders get results. Character traits like loyalty, honesty, resilience, and grit are more often needed than so called ‘experience.’ Go get ‘em Bill,” Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.) wrote on X.

The ODNI has not responded to any requests for comment from The Hill since Pulte was tapped to lead the office earlier this month, including queries about the firings.

Concern over Pulte prompted Democrats to refuse to reauthorize the nation’s spy powers, causing the surveillance authority to go dark on June 12. Only after Congress left for the week did Trump announce he would pick U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton as his nominee for a permanent director of national intelligence. But as the Senate moved swiftly to confirm Clayton in as little as two days, Trump reneged, telling his nominee not to appear for a hearing slated for Wednesday.

Warner this week introduced legislation aimed at blocking another acting official like Pulte from being installed at the ODNI, requiring the president to fill any vacancies from a number of Senate-confirmed officials who staff the office.

“The intelligence community should be led by experienced, Senate-confirmed professionals,” Warner said in a statement announcing the bill, “not by whoever happens to be most willing to carry out the president’s whims and vendettas.”

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Adam Schiff

Bill Pulte

Elon Musk

Jim Himes

John Thune

Mark Warner

Thom Tillis

Tulsi Gabbard

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