Just hours before Senate Republicans confirmed Jay Clayton as the new director of national intelligence, the acting DNI made a notable announcement via social media.
“Good News!” Bill Pulte wrote, embracing a Trumpian approach to grammatical rules and capitalization (and a Farnsworthian catchphrase). “In addition to the Historic DECLASSIFICATIONS (Transparency!) by the President, we are, this morning, Executing a 5th and Near Final Round of TERMINATIONS, an approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago.”
The highly controversial director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency did not clarify who, exactly, should consider this development to be “good news,” though the announcement was probably welcome news in the Oval Office.
After all, in early June, Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal that he wanted Pulte to fire many intelligence officials during his temporary tenure, and Politico reported soon after that Pulte had already directed staffers at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to pull together a list of people who could be ousted, before his time as acting DNI even began.
In the days and weeks that followed, Pulte boasted about a series of “terminations,” but a fundamental question soon emerged: Was he telling the truth? The New York Times reported:
Bill Pulte … has spent his final days on the job celebrating his efforts to terminate employees in his office.
But current and former officials said few people have actually been fired in recent weeks from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, despite a flurry of social media posts by Mr. Pulte. And members of Congress have been left scratching their heads about whether Mr. Pulte has cut nearly as many employees as he has claimed.
A spokesperson for Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “The acting DNI has been quick to announce firings and make public claims about them, but has so far declined to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with the information necessary to assess the accuracy of those statements or the basis for those decisions.”
The Times’ report added that Pulte’s office “has provided no details or explanations of the purported cuts,” and his spokesperson did not respond to the newspaper’s questions about the veracity of his claims.
It’s worth clarifying that the ODNI, just as a matter of course, often has intelligence officers working there who eventually return to their home agencies (the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, etc.) after a temporary assignment, which in turn has sparked speculation about whether Pulte, who had literally no background in intelligence work before the president tapped him to serve as acting DNI, simply doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.
“[S]everal former U.S. intelligence officials expressed disbelief about the claim of reductions,” the Times added. “They said Mr. Pulte was counting people whose tour of duty at the office was complete and were returning to their home agencies as previously planned. He also appears to be counting unfilled positions at the National Counterterrorism Center and other parts of the spy office as terminations, former officials said.”
While we wait for additional clarity on what, exactly, Pulte has done to the ODNI’s workforce, there’s also the question of what he intends to do once Clayton is sworn in and the acting DNI’s tenure comes to an end.
Politico reported, “Few administration officials expect Pulte to disappear even when Clayton is eventually sworn in. He’ll retain his role overseeing the Federal Housing Finance Agency and could be considered for a future Cabinet opening.” Watch this space.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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