Bill Pulte’s Acting DNI Tenure Begins With Two Rounds of Firings

Bill Pulte, the acting Director of National Intelligence, has fired dozens of intelligence officials in his first weeks on the job, MS NOW reported on July 3. Pulte, who also runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency, began issuing fresh termination notices on Thursday, July 2, after a first round of dismissals on June 23 that already removed more than 50 people across political and career ranks.

The stated reason is the same in both rounds. An intelligence official who spoke to MS NOW on condition of anonymity said the Trump administration was removing officials “who they believe are deep state” and who have allegedly failed to provide complete pictures of available intelligence. Four former senior intelligence officials told MS NOW they had never heard of such withholding inside the career service.

Two Rounds of Firings, One Stated Reason

Pulte took the acting DNI role on June 19 with a mandate from President Donald Trump, posted to Truth Social, to “execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office.” Within four days, Pulte had fired six political appointees who had served under his predecessor Tulsi Gabbard and removed 45 career officials on joint duty assignments, returning them to their home agencies, according to the first report of the June 23 firings by CNN, which cited four sources familiar with the moves. CBS reported the total at the time as more than 50 dismissals.

The new wave began Thursday, July 2. An intelligence official told MS NOW that dozens of additional notices went out that day. The official, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal, framed the targets as those leadership views as part of a “deep state.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

More than 50 intelligence officials have been dismissed across the two rounds, with one source telling CNN that as many as two dozen additional firings could follow in the coming weeks.

The ‘Deep State’ Rationale and the Pushback

Intelligence leadership has cast the fired officials as withholding information from superiors. Four former senior intelligence officials told MS NOW that premise does not match their experience. “The premise is absurd,” one of them said.

Another questioned how Pulte, who has no intelligence background, could reach such a judgment so quickly. “I have a real question of how he would know this,” the former official said. “This isn’t a guy who is familiar with intelligence… How is he going to get to the bottom of this and rely on any information with a matter of fidelity? It would be like me taking over a hospital and firing dozens of surgeons in a matter of days.”

Pushback from the former officials clustered around four points:

• None had ever seen career officers deliberately withhold intelligence from leadership.
• The Office of the Director of National Intelligence receives intelligence, it does not collect it, so it is not positioned to detect a withhold.
• CIA Director John Ratcliffe would be the first to know about any such problem, not the DNI’s office.
• The cohort being dismissed is the same one that produces the President’s Daily Brief and the annual threat assessment.

A third former senior intelligence official was blunt in remarks to MS NOW:

The intelligence community is comprised of committed professionals. This is a fantasy. It only hurts U.S. national security, and it’s helpful to Russia, China and Iran.

A fourth said the “overwhelming majority of professional intelligence officers are motivated by a deep and enduring commitment to protect the national security of the United States” and “deeply resent the idea that doing so somehow confirms the idea there is some kind of a deep state.”

How Pulte Got the Job and What Trump Asked Him to Do

The chain of events that put Pulte in the chair began on May 22, when Tulsi Gabbard resigned as DNI, citing her husband’s cancer diagnosis and a planned June 30 departure. Trump named Pulte, who has continued to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as acting DNI the following week. In a June 5 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he wanted Pulte to “start the process” of firing large numbers of DNI employees.

The path from that instruction to the July notices ran through these milestones:

1. May 22, 2026: Tulsi Gabbard resigns as DNI.
2. June 5, 2026: Trump tells The Wall Street Journal he wants Pulte to “start the process” of firing.
3. June 11, 2026: Trump nominates Jay Clayton as permanent DNI.
4. June 17, 2026: Senate confirmation hearing for Clayton scheduled.
5. June 19, 2026: Pulte assumes the acting DNI role and gains access to the most sensitive intelligence.
6. June 23, 2026: First wave of firings, 51 dismissed in one day.
7. July 2, 2026: Second wave begins; termination notices go out.

Pulte’s lack of national security experience has drawn bipartisan criticism. Federal statute requires the president to appoint a DNI with “extensive national security expertise,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told PBS NewsHour. “Mr. Pulte has none of that,” McCaul said. The president’s choice has drawn bipartisan pushback because lawmakers tied his interim role to the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a key foreign-intelligence collection authority set to expire days after the nomination.

The Permanent Nominee Waiting in the Wings

Trump nominated Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as the permanent DNI on June 11. Clayton was framed as a more conventional choice after the backlash to Pulte. The Senate scheduled his confirmation hearing for June 17.

Hours before that hearing, Trump posted on Truth Social instructing Clayton not to attend and saying Pulte would remain acting DNI in the interim, according to the report detailing Trump’s postponement of Clayton’s hearing. The move effectively froze the confirmation process and left Pulte in control of the office through the firing rounds.

Clayton’s path forward remains tied to Section 702. The House rejected a short-term extension of the surveillance authority before going on recess, deepening the standoff. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told PBS NewsHour that his position on renewing the authority would not change before he had “a clear guarantee that Mr. Pulte will not serve as acting DNI.” The White House has not signaled it will withdraw Pulte.

The Office Pulte Is Reshaping

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after the September 11 attacks to coordinate information sharing across U.S. spy agencies and prevent the kind of stove-piping that contributed to the failure to detect the plot, according to CNN. The office oversees 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency, and produces interagency products such as the President’s Daily Brief.

Gabbard announced in 2025 a 40 percent workforce reduction at the office, arguing it had become bloated and inefficient. CNN, citing a source familiar with the dismissals, reported that ODNI office space is now “more than half unoccupied and disheveled,” with one insider comparing the staff mood to “the trauma of the Covid pandemic.”

Congressional oversight committees have moved quickly. Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, sent Pulte a letter on June 23 warning that “any large cuts would follow on a substantial downsizing that has already occurred in 2025 and risk jeopardizing the mission of an organization explicitly created after 9/11.” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is retiring, called Pulte “an incompetent sycophant” in remarks to reporters.

The broader pattern of contested Trump-era removals has run into judicial friction elsewhere. In June, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to keep Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve Board, rejecting Trump’s bid to fire her over mortgage fraud allegations she denies.

Where the Cuts Could Go Next

CNN’s source said Pulte has been consulting career intelligence officials on the cuts, a detail Republican senators cited when describing their surprise at how the acting DNI has handled the role. “Pulte being willing to rock the boat and send a bunch of people back to their agencies and gut the bureaucracy is a feature, not a bug for Republicans,” a Republican Senate staffer told the network.

The next public markers of direction will be the ODNI’s 2026 annual threat assessment, interagency tasking memos, and any movement on Clayton’s confirmation. Pulte, for his part, used a Tuesday post on X to praise the National Counterterrorism Center team, which CNN reported was not affected by the June 23 cuts. His office did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on the latest wave of dismissals. Clayton’s status depends on whether the Senate conditions his confirmation on removing Pulte from the acting role, a position Warner has said is non-negotiable, and whether the White House agrees.