{"id":198,"date":"2026-06-25T23:45:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=198"},"modified":"2026-06-25T23:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:45:22","slug":"flattery-secrecy-and-chaos-bill-pultes-first-week-as-intel-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=198","title":{"rendered":"Flattery, secrecy and chaos: Bill Pulte\u2019s first week as intel chief"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.<\/p>\n

Read more Barack Obama says Trump gives him a \u2018room in his head\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as \u201cchaotic\u201d amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.<\/p>\n

One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office\u2019s Resolute Desk.<\/p>\n

In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there \u201ctrue professionals and American patriots\u201d after he said he spent time with them, adding \u201cit is a privilege to work beside them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was \u201cNational Typewriter Day\u201d and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFun CI fact,\u201d the post reads. \u201cFormer Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed \u2018The Typewriter\u2019 on October 9, 1950.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Pulte\u2019s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office\u2019s workforce, four former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW on condition of anonymity, citing concerns of retaliation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been calling over there all day and can\u2019t get my calls returned,\u201d said Himes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He later said, \u201cI spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like it\u2019s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,\u201d Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. \u201cThere was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don\u2019t know.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more At America\u2019s 250th, Trump makes himself the main event<\/a><\/p>\n

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,\u201d he said. \u201cThat said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI\u2019s mission is to ensure that the country\u2019s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.<\/p>\n

But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs with many things Trump alights upon, there is a missive of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,\u201d a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW. \u201cBut mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.\u201d<\/p>\n

That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte\u2019s mission is to use his position as the nation\u2019s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration\u2019s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte\u2019s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November \u2014 as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump\u2019s behest \u2014 as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,\u201d Warner told NPR earlier this month. \u201cThe concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Deadline: Legal Blog<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pulte\u2019s arrival as acting director of national intelligence has sparked anxiety and fear among the office\u2019s workforce, former intelligence officials told MS NOW.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nFlattery, secrecy and chaos: Bill Pulte\u2019s first week as intel chief - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=198\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Flattery, secrecy and chaos: Bill Pulte\u2019s first week as intel chief - 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