A reminder on just how big a piece of shit this guy is.
For one, he has zero—we cannot stress that enough—national intelligence experience. Instead, he’s a nepo baby heir to a residential home construction company. How that makes him qualified to lead the country’s spy agencies is just beyond comprehension.
But worse than that, he is an election denier who as head of the FHFA has used his powers not to help people obtain affordable housing but rather to carry out Trump’s revenge tour.
Pulte was the one behind the
attempts to jail Trump’s perceived enemies on bogus mortgage fraud charges. He
pushed the Department of Justice to indict New York Attorney General Tish James on baseless mortgage fraud charges—charges that were
thrown out by a federal judge. When the DOJ tried to seek charges against James
again, a
grand jury refused to indict her, something that happens so rarely people joke that a grand jury could indict a ham sandwich.
Pulte didn’t stop there, however. He also referred Rep. Adam Schiff—the California Democrat who successfully led the efforts to impeach Trump twice—to the DOJ to be
investigated for mortgage fraud.
And Trump relied on yet another bullshit Pulte “investigation” when he
attempted to fire Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, whose firing has been
halted by federal courts as she challenges her dismissal.
“Thank you President Trump for your commitment to stopping mortgage fraud and following the law,” Pulte
wrote in a post on X after Trump announced he was firing Cook. “If you commit mortgage fraud in America, we will come after you, no matter who you are.”
Most frightening of all, as DNI Pulte would now control the country’s spy agencies, giving him the power to use them against Trump’s enemies rather than the
actual enemies of the United States who pose a threat to all Americans.
“The biggest news isn’t that Trump is appointing someone without a national security background to a position that, by law, requires ‘extensive’ experience. It’s that Pulte earned Trump’s trust by using
mortgage records to pursue perceived political enemies,” Ned Price, a former U.S. intelligence official under former President Joe Biden,
wrote in a post on X. “Now this top henchman will have access to some of our most sensitive intelligence and exquisite capabilities. That’s why this is so noteworthy—and concerning.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Americans should be worried about Pulte’s appointment.
“Americans have every reason to worry about what happens when the official charged with overseeing everything from counterterrorism to foreign election threats is chosen for his willingness to advance the president’s political agenda rather than his experience,” Warner
wrote in a post on X. “That is how intelligence becomes politicized, how inconvenient facts disappear, how agencies charged with protecting our democracy instead become tools to manipulate it, and how Americans are left more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.”
In fact, Pulte’s appointment is so bad that even Republicans are criticizing it.
“Bill Pulte is one of the worst members of the President’s team and has convinced Trump to do more stupid stuff than anyone else in the past year. He’ll be driven to work in a very short bus each day,” right-wing radio host Erick Erickson
wrote in a post on X.
Jonah Goldberg, a conservative commentator, echoed those sentiments. “Great, a totally unqualified loyalist with a record of cutting corners to help the president punish political opponents. Just the guy you want at DNI,” Goldberg
wrote in a post on X.