Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Housing Boss Pulte Also Named Acting DNI
After the failures of the community in preventing the 9/11 attacks on America, Congress decided to create the job of Director of National Intelligence to oversee all of them. Intelligence is not better than before, and it appears that the Trump administration thinks little of the job. Former DNI Tulsi Gabbard had little intelligence experience (note, having worn a uniform does not make one an expert on foreign affairs). She was a failure but shines out in comparison to her replacement. Federal Housing Finance Administrator Bill Pulte is now also the Acting DNI. The man has no experience at all in foreign affairs and has used the housing position to bring charges against the perceived enemies of the president.
Mr. Pulte is the kind of man who thrives under a gangster regime like the Trump administration. He himself has accomplished almost nothing in life. After getting a bachelors degree in broadcast communications, he went to work at Pulte Capital. The name is not a coincidence. His grandfather founded Pulte Homes, a developer of suburban tract homes. Pulte Capital is how the family manages is wealth. The new Acting DNI is a nepo baby of the first degree.
As the head of the FHFA, he has access to all kinds of information related to mortgage loans. He has abused this power to bring mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney-General Tish James and against Senator Adam Schiff, among others. These charges went nowhere, but they are an inconvenience that costs the target time and money. The reason he did these is to please President Trump. Indeed, Mr. Pulte is so far up the backside of Mr. Trump that his nickname at the White House is "little Trump." Mr. Pulte is so crooked he has to screw his pants on.
He has said that he would use his position to investigate domestic terrorism, which is long overdue. However, he seems to think that the left has a monopoly on domestic terror, when in fact, the right is much closer to such a monopoly. One can readily see how a man who is content to abuse his access to mortgage information would have no compunction against doing the same with anti-terror data. Moreover, he does not even need evidence. He can simply make suggestions and let the FBI (which he also oversees as DNI) do the dirty work.
As bad as the abuse would be for domestic freedoms, the ineptitude of Mr. Pulte in global intelligence operations will be a disaster. One can presume any success would be beginner's luck rather than the result of bringing experience and savvy to bear as he has none. At a time when the US is at war with Iran, it might be a good idea to have someone in the job of DNI who knows the difference between Iran and Iraq beyond the spelling. It is unclear if Mr. Pulte has ever left the country.
The job of DNI is something of a bureaucratic growth, and this journal believes it is unnecessary. A reorganization of US intelligence would have been a better, more effective solution to the 9/11 failures. Despite being a pointless position, the DNI does have the power to do untold damage to the US intelligence gathering activities and to the analytical side of matters. He can, usually at the whim of the president, target certain countries, ignore others and close down operations that might bother the presidential business partners (the GCC states for instance).
This would prove devastating. Intelligence is about gathering data that the policy makers need to steer the ship of state. Politicizing the DNI position puts the cart ahead of the horse in that the intelligence agencies would be looking for (or fabricating) politically useful information rather than finding the information before deciding what value it has. Mr. Pulte is going to make the DNI job serve the president not the nation.
The good news is that he will be destroying the intelligence community part-time. He retains the job of FHFA boss, probably because Mr. Trump could not find anyone who wanted the position if Mr. Pulte left. Besides, Pulte Homes needs a guy on the inside to make sure regulations do not get in the way of extra profits.
© Copyright 2026 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
|
|
|
