It appears Pulte will pick up where Gabbard left off in agitating for prosecution of Obama officials connected to Russiagate.
Unlike some other appointments, President Trump’s naming of Tulsi Gabbard to serve as national intelligence director was not something I could get too whipped up about. It was a bad appointment, but — as I’ve argued before — the ODNI should never have been established in the first place (an overcorrection in the 9/11 aftermath). Its short history has featured too many episodes of politicizing intelligence. And the government’s critical intelligence work is still done by the CIA, the National Security Agency, the FBI’s National Security Division, the president’s National Security Council, and the other more active components.
That said, President Trump’s naming of Bill Pulte to replace the recently departed Gabbard is astounding.
As director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Pulte has demonstrated himself to be a loyalist whose main task has been to peruse the database in search of contradictory statements in filings that the Trump Justice Department has tried to inflate into fraud cases against Trump political enemies, such as Letitia James, Lisa Cook, and Adam Schiff. Pulte is a Trump donor with a journalism degree. It appears that he has no security, intelligence, or legal experience.
What can be said is that, while Gabbard was apparently cut out of such critical intelligence matters as the Iran war and the forcible extraction of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, she was quite occupied with exposing intelligence files relevant to Russiagate — alleging that they established “a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.” She urged that these officials, including former President Obama, “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
As I’ve previously contended, the gist of what Gabbard revealed from government files has been known for years (a lot of it was covered in my 2019 book, Ball of Collusion). The Obama administration did indeed put the government’s law enforcement and intelligence apparatus in the service of partisan Democratic objectives, including undermining Trump. (Trump has likewise exploited his control of that apparatus to wage political warfare against his opposition.) But abuses of power do not amount to a prosecutable conspiracy — much less one to commit treason, which is defined by the Constitution to “consist only in levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” The difficulty of prosecuting government misconduct is underscored by the very immunity principles that Trump posited in successfully blocking his own prosecution.
The president and his supporters should take comfort in the fact that he was elected in 2016 and reelected in 2024 despite the lawfare hardball played against him. Incessant talk about indicting Obama officials may energize Trump’s political base, but the notion of a viable prosecution is far-fetched.
In any event, it seems obvious that Pulte’s main credential to serve as acting national intelligence director is a willingness to pore over government files — and now, highly classified government files — and fit them into the political narrative that Trump’s rivals must be charged with crimes.
He has also been chosen because he has previously been confirmed by the Senate — for his current position. Under federal law (Section 3345 of Title 5, U.S. Code, often referred to as the Vacancies Act), if a high office requiring Senate confirmation becomes vacant, the president may fill the vacancy with an acting officer who is serving in a position that similarly required confirmation. The acting officer may serve for 210 days. Trump says that during that period, Pulte will continue running FHFA — which, not to beat a dead horse, should tell us something about the ODNI’s minimal value.
There is already howling on Capitol Hill — Democrats say the sky is falling, and Republicans seem less than eager to rally behind the Pulte pick. Still, I don’t see how Pulte’s appointment as acting DNI can be blocked. I’d scrap the ODNI altogether, but I’d have done that regardless of Pulte — it’s not the way Washington works.
Author’s note: This post has been corrected. I changed “filing contradictions” to “contradictory statements in filings” for the sake of clarity.