Trump appoints Bill Pulte, unqualified loyalist who targeted his foes, as acting intel chief

President Donald Trump tapped loyalist Bill Pulte, a top housing official, to serve as acting director of national intelligence (DNI), a cabinet position tasked with overseeing the U.S. intelligence community.

Pulte currently leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and has no known experience in intelligence. What he does offer is loyalty: Known in MAGA circles as “Little Trump,” Pulte has used his relatively minor federal housing post — and his chairmanship of mortgage groups Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — to help target a swath of the president’s enemies.

In a statement, Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, slammed Pulte as “someone who will be willing to shape intelligence around the president’s wishes, regardless of the cost to the American people.”

“This is how intelligence becomes politicized, how inconvenient facts disappear, how agencies charged with protecting our democracy become tools to manipulate it, and how Americans are left more vulnerable to a terrorist attack,” Warner said.

Asked Tuesday about the appointment, Senate Republican Leader John Thune (S.D.) told reporters that Pulte would have “a lengthy road ahead of him” if Trump nominated him to take the position permanently.

“He’ll have to go through a confirmation process and hearings and everything else, so we’ll see,” Thune said, adding that “we don’t need a weaponized DNI; we need professionals there.”

Pulte, a former private equity CEO and heir to a construction empire, will replace outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard, who announced last month that she will resign from her post later this summer to care for her husband while he undergoes treatment for bone cancer.

“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets,” Trump said in a social media post, adding that Pulte will remain FHFA director and chair of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as he serves as acting DNI.

Last year, Pulte set in motion criminal investigations against several of Trump’s political enemies by obtaining their mortgage documents and submitting them to the Department of Justice (DOJ) as alleged evidence of fraud.

Through these referrals, Pulte helped spur criminal investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), both of whom led investigations into Trump. The DOJ’s mortgage fraud case against James in Virginia ultimately failed, while its Maryland-based probe into Schiff has not yet resulted in criminal charges.

Pulte also helped initiate the DOJ’s mortgage fraud probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, a Biden appointee whom Trump attempted to fire last year as part of his bid to assert control over the central bank.

Pulte’s work at the FHFA has been indicative of how the Trump administration has weaponized even the most peripheral parts of the federal government to go after the president’s opponents.