Hillary Clinton knocks Pulte: ‘You should definitely be worried about everything’

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went after acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Bill Pulte, saying that she wished there were career and political appointees across agencies that were “slow-walking or refusing to share information with” him.

“We should definitely be worried about everything. This is a naked partisan takeover of the director of national intelligence, which was formed following 9/11 to better try to coordinate the various intelligence agencies,” Clinton said on a Wednesday episode of the “Defending Democracy with Marc Elias” podcast.

These agencies include the CIA, the National Security Agency and more.

“Because we missed a lot of signals that we should have paid attention to leading up to 9/11, and it was thought in this legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security and created the DNI that this would be a better coordinating mechanism.”

“I think there’s a lot of problems with it, but it is at the hub of all of our intelligence. The DNI has access to everything, everything that they want to see,” she added. “I mean, I hope there are career and even political appointees, in various of the agencies, that are slow-walking or refusing to share information with Pulte.”

Pulte has already delivered on his controversial tenure that critics were anxious about when President Trump chose him to be acting director of national intelligence. He began the job last month and quickly carried out Trump’s wish to lay off staffers at the office of the director of national intelligence.

Democrats have gone after Pulte for using his role as Federal Housing Finance Agency director to assist Trump in using mortgage records to target the president’s political opponents.

“You’re going to turn the keys of all of our intelligence agencies over [to] somebody so grossly unqualified who’s shown he’s willing to take information and misuse it — secret information,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Fox News Sunday” last month.

Earlier this week, Pulte reiterated his allegations of mortgage fraud against Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook, after the Supreme Court barred Trump from immediately firing her for cause.

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Bill Pulte

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