Bill Pulte is due to take over as acting director of national intelligence by the end of the month, putting the administration’s chief housing regulator at the center of one of the government’s most sensitive posts. He will keep his current job running the Federal Housing Finance Agency while also overseeing some of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful intelligence agencies.
The move is landing now because it would place a Trump loyalist in a role that can touch foreign threats, domestic oversight and the raw machinery of intelligence at a moment when the president is still attacking the 2020 presidential election. Trump continues to falsely claim Democrats stole that vote, and he has also called for the federal government to oversee voting in some states because, he says, local authorities cannot be trusted.
Three people with knowledge of Trump’s decision said Pulte won the president’s confidence by moving quickly against Trump’s prominent Democratic critics. He is also a regular presence at the White House and at Trump’s properties in Florida, which has made him a familiar figure in the president’s orbit. Supporters of the appointment say that is exactly the point: Trump is rewarding a loyalist as he grows impatient with efforts by others in his administration.
Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s closest allies, said Pulte “gets things done and brings ideas to the president,” adding, “That’s what President Trump is looking for.” Bannon said Pulte’s mandate is to pick up where Tulsi Gabbard left off as national intelligence director, which would mean focusing on foreign threats to U.S. elections, investigating the so-called deep state, coordinating intelligence work and offering up alternatives to what is coming out of the CIA. He said Pulte would be moving in with “a heightened urgency.”
That urgency is what has former intelligence officers worried. Pulte has no known work experience in intelligence, the military or national security, yet he is due to gain access to intelligence that could be used to target political opponents or help justify possible federal oversight of elections. For officials who spent years inside the system, the concern is not abstract: a person with no background in the field would arrive with access to information most Americans will never see.
What happens next is straightforward and unsettling. By the end of the month, Pulte is expected to be in the job, still running housing finance while sitting atop a post that can shape how intelligence is gathered, interpreted and used. The open question is not whether he will get the role. It is how far he will take it once he does.
