Bill Pulte, a close ally of President Trump’s, appears set to take over as the acting director of national intelligence on Friday, despite deep opposition on Capitol Hill and apprehension inside the nation’s spy agencies.
Mr. Pulte has used his current post as a top federal housing official to help with Mr. Trump’s campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies. Lawmakers are worried that Mr. Pulte could find ways to weaponize the spy office even in just a few days on the job.
Republicans and Democrats agree that the role is hardly the most consequential national security job in the government, even though it nominally oversees all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.
The office is small compared to the C.I.A. or National Security Agency, and does not engage directly in espionage, instead serving a largely bureaucratic function of coordinating intelligence in the government. Under Mr. Trump, it has had limited influence in foreign policy decisions.
But the diminished stature of the position and the lack of a core national security mission under the president has only fanned worries about what Mr. Pulte intends to do in the job.
Former officials and lawmakers have said they are worried Mr. Pulte could declassify information that increases foreign propaganda, feeds false narratives about past or future elections, and exposes sources or methods of intelligence collection.
Tulsi Gabbard, the current director of national intelligence, has won praise from Mr. Trump for focusing on election matters, including the examination of Russian interference in the 2016 election and Mr. Trump’s unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 vote.
But Ms. Gabbard had limits to how far she was willing to go with her election claims and declassifications, current and former officials said. Lawmakers and former officials said Mr. Pulte may have few restraints.
Mr. Pulte, who under the law can serve a maximum of 210 days in the post, has not said much about his priorities. But his record shows that he has a keen sense of what is important to Mr. Trump and an equally strong desire to please him. As a result, officials are bracing for the office to be even more involved in the midterm elections.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said on Wednesday that Mr. Pulte was “a menace.”
Mr. Schumer said Mr. Trump’s machinations to have Mr. Pulte serve as the acting director of national intelligence were compromising efforts to reauthorize a key national security surveillance tool.
“It is so obvious to everyone that to have Pulte at the hands of the gears with these tools would be dangerous to America, and even our Republican colleagues know it,” Mr. Schumer said.
In May, Ms. Gabbard announced that she would step down at the end of June, citing her husband’s cancer diagnosis and the need to support him during his treatment. Her departure later shifted to this Friday.
Earlier this month, Mr. Pulte visited the headquarters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, getting a tour, meeting officials and preparing to take over as acting director, according to U.S. officials.
Just a week ago, Mr. Trump announced that he would nominate Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, to be the next director. Mr. Clayton, who was scheduled to have a hearing before the Senate on Wednesday, received his own tour of the Virginia campus, which is known as Liberty Crossing.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he was delaying Mr. Clayton’s nomination. The president demanded that Congress pass a contentious voter identification law before he pushed Mr. Clayton forward.
With the delay, Mr. Pulte again seems set to take over on Friday, when Ms. Gabbard is slated to step down.
The actions whipsawed members of the intelligence community, who found themselves once more facing at least a short period with Mr. Pulte as the acting director.
Both Republicans and Democrats have said that Mr. Pulte is unqualified for the post. That is in part because he lacks any national security experience. But more broadly, there is bipartisan concern about his record since he joined Mr. Trump’s second administration.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said his concerns with Mr. Pulte centered on “the national security risk of showing our nation’s top secrets to an individual who’s shown no respect for law or privacy.”
Mr. Trump, Mr. Warner said, was rewarding Mr. Pulte for his record of “weaponizing mortgage information.”
Administration figures have defended Mr. Pulte, and have said he would use his time as acting director to further shrink the office, although Ms. Gabbard already made deep cuts. Mr. Clayton told intelligence officials on Monday that he, too, was looking to trim the size of the office.
Exactly what Mr. Pulte will seek to cut, and what documents he could seek to declassify, are not known.
Mr. Trump is also giving a new role to John Solomon, a journalist who has raised questions about the Russia investigations in Mr. Trump’s first term. Mr. Solomon’s mandate is to push out more documents and reports related to what Mr. Trump sees as abuses of law enforcement and intelligence.
Some of those documents were released at the end of the president’s first term. But others were held back at the insistence of the C.I.A., which feared that the identities of sources and methods of intelligence collection could be revealed. Mr. Pulte could review those documents again.
Ms. Gabbard has been willing to release documents, including a detailed report from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee that contained details of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. But those disclosures have focused on intelligence analysis, a far less sensitive matter than the details of collection.
Mr. Pulte may have a broader mandate. As the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Mr. Pulte used his position to raise allegations of faulty mortgage documents against Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, and other officials.
Mr. Schiff was previously the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and incurred the wrath of Mr. Trump for leading an investigation into his ties to Russia, as well as the first impeachment case against the president.
Mr. Trump’s allies have long accused Mr. Schiff of leaking information about Mr. Trump and Russia, though they have provided no evidence. Mr. Schiff has denied the allegations of mortgage fraud and leaking, and no legal action has been taken against him.
Exactly what Mr. Pulte may do on the election front is even less clear, but Mr. Trump has teased that Mr. Pulte’s appointment could mean that the public learns about “rigged elections.”
Raising election concerns was a key part of how Ms. Gabbard stayed in Mr. Trump’s good graces. At the president’s direction, she showed up in Georgia to supervise an F.B.I. raid that seized ballots in Fulton County, then put the president on the phone with agents carrying out the raid. She also began an inquiry looking for vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines, even taking a voting machine in Puerto Rico for examination by her office.
During the Trump and Biden administrations, the agency has gathered information about attempts by foreign adversaries to influence the vote.
In 2020, the office outlined attempts by Iran and Russia to manipulate American voters’ views. In 2024, the office was even more aggressive, debunking false videos pushed by Russia alleging voting fraud and calling out efforts to falsely malign the Democratic ticket or spread election-related chaos.
Those 2024 efforts earned the scorn of many Trump supporters. Once in office for his second term, Mr. Trump’s aides began dismantling the government’s infrastructure for fighting foreign interference in U.S. elections.
Whatever Mr. Pulte’s first moves may be, his impending arrival is sitting poorly with Republicans. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said that Mr. Trump’s decision to delay Mr. Clayton’s nomination was “another kink in the slinky that makes no sense.”
Mr. Tillis’ blunt assessment of Mr. Pulte: a “sycophant.”
Robert Jimison contributed reporting.
