Trump’s Pick for Intelligence Head is Spectacularly Unqualified - Rob Horowitz

Trump’s Pick for Intelligence Head is Spectacularly Unqualified - Rob Horowitz

There is a pressing need today for reliable, accurate intelligence assessments across a range of issues, given the multiple serious national security matters the Trump administration is facing. These include our war with Iran and the real scope of its nuclear program, the changing status of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the expanding use of A.I. by militaries around the world, and terrorist threats to the homeland.

 

In these dangerous times, one would think the president would seek to appoint an especially qualified and experienced intelligence professional as his new director of national intelligence (DNI). Instead, Mr. Trump did the exact opposite. The president’s choice for acting director, Bill Pulte, has no national security experience. To add insult to injury, the president apparently believes that overseeing 18 separate intelligence agencies and serving as his chief intelligence advisor is a part-time job.  Pulte is keeping his current role as director of the Federal Housing Financing Agency (FHFA).

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The selection of Pulte flies in the face of the explicit statutory requirement that the DNI must have “extensive national security experience.”  To maneuver around this commonsense legal provision applying to anyone nominated for Senate confirmation, the Trump administration announced that he will only serve in an acting capacity. While this sounds temporary, Pulte can stay in the job for 210 days with several ways to extend his tenure even longer.

 

For President Trump, Mr. Pulte’s absence of any discernible qualifications is apparently more than made up for by his demonstrated willingness to use his position to go after the president’s declared enemies and advance the false claims of which he refuses to let go, including that the 2020 election was stolen.  For Mr. Trump, Mr. Pulte’s weaponization of his role as FHFA director to accuse Lettia James, the attorney general of NY, Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve commissioner Trump is seeking to get rid of, and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) of mortgage fraud and to urge the Justice Department to prosecute them are the bona fides that count. The fact that these claims are questionable at best probably just further endeared Pulte to the president.

 

Mr. Trump has also made clear that he would like Bill Pulte to bolster the president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.  “You may find some things about the rigged elections,” Trump remarked. As was the case when the previous DNI Tulsi Gabbard inexplicably joined the FBI on a Fulton County, Georgia 2020 ballots fishing expedition, this type of domestic activity is far outside the purview of the DNI.

 

Perhaps most disturbing is the distinct possibility that at the president’s behest, Bill Pulte will use his perch as intelligence chief to charge that the 2026 mid-terms are going to be rigged, acting in advance of the mid-terms based on his false claims or supplying highly suspect information to create a pretext to challenge selected election results.   For those who too blithely dismiss this possibility, Mr. Trump’s all out attempt to cling to power by any means necessary after losing the 2020 election, culminating on January 6th, remains instructive.

 

This fraught moment cries out for a high-quality intelligence official who is capable of sophisticated analysis and speaking truth to power-not an unqualified partisan attack dog who will tell the president only what he wants to hear.  While President Trump has made more than his fair share of truly terrible cabinet-level appointments, Bill Pulte stands out as the worst.