Reporter painstakingly details how Trump’s DNI pick will hijack intel apparatus

President Donald Trump named Bill Pulte to oversee the entire national security apparatus of the United States. He will serve in the job while also remaining in his current job as Federal Housing Finance Agency Director. This adds to Pulte's other job, chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Pulte has a history of using his government position to aid Trump's retribution campaign, targeting Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Cook was never charged by the Justice Department and James' charges were dismissed.

You know, to call this appointment an unorthodox one, I think, would be an understatement," said senior CNN reporter Kevin Liptak. "You know, he's the heir to a construction company, fortune. He's been in this mortgage role for the last year or so. What he is, is a real, true Trump loyalist. You know, he's a frequent guest on Air Force One and at Mar-a-Lago. And what you've seen him doing is leveraging this role that he's in at the mortgage agency to try and go after some of Trump's perceived enemies..."

While the Cook efforts have failed, Liptak said that it has likely "engendered an enormous amount of goodwill towards him by the president."

He noted the seriousness of the Director of National Intelligence post, overseeing 17 intelligence agencies. The post was created after Sept. 11, 2001, when a report found there was intelligence ahead of time that an attack was imminent, but that bureaucratic silos prevented the various intelligence agencies from connecting all of the dots.

Liptak said that Trump has relied more on the CIA for international intelligence than he did on Gabbard.

"He looked to her to, sort of, go after some of his obsessions, whether it's to try and advance claims of voting fraud, whether it was to try and downplay allegations of Russian election meddling," said Liptak. "This, I think, suggests that the president will put in this position someone who has gone after this retribution campaign, who has advanced some ideas of vindication against some of his enemies. [Trump] doesn't say whether he will be appointing him to the permanent job, but because Bill Pulte was already approved by the Senate for his current job, he will be able to stay in this position for quite some time."

CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked whether the White House had yet to explain what qualifies Pulte to run the nation's intelligence apparatus.

"The only qualifications that the White House has specified is what President Trump is pointing out on his Truth Social, which is what he calls experience 'managing the most sensitive matters in America,'" Liptak said.

"I do think you can read into what Pulte has used his job to do as how President Trump views the DNI position," Liptak continued. "He has used his access to the mortgage information in his current position to go after Trump's perceived enemies. And I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that he would use his access as the intelligence director to also potentially advance the retribution campaign. That has been the most prominent way we have seen Bill Pulte act in the job that he is currently in."

Trump, he explained, has put a "premium on trying to go after his enemies, but also has been frustrated that [it's] not been particularly effective or particularly quick so far in his term."

It's one of the reasons Trump fired former Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Pulte, wrote Will Neal for the Daily Beast in November, "has reportedly made such a song and dance of pandering to the president that it’s starting to drive other aides insane."

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