On June 19, Bill Pulte showed up early to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — the day before he officially started his job as acting DNI. His first order of business wasn't a briefing on foreign threats or satellite intelligence. He requested the employee list.
By the weekend, sources were confirming what the list was for: "The deep state firings have begun."
Pulte, only in office for three days so far, has launched what's being reported as the most significant personnel purge in the intelligence community under the Trump administration. Hundreds of jobs at ODNI are on the chopping block. Not reassignments. Not voluntary buyouts. Terminations.
The backstory explains the velocity. When Tulsi Gabbard resigned as DNI, Trump named Pulte as acting director — a move that drew immediate bipartisan backlash and contributed directly to FISA reauthorization failing before its expiration. Facing that pressure, Trump appeared to reverse course: he nominated Jay Clayton — U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former SEC Chairman under Trump's first term — as the permanent DNI. Clayton had the credentials. The establishment could work with him. The criticism quieted.
Then, hours before Clayton's confirmation hearing was set to begin on June 17, Trump cancelled it. His stated conditions: the Senate needed to first confirm Jamie McDonald as Clayton's replacement at the Southern District, and FISA reauthorization needed to be bundled with the SAVE America Act voter ID bill. "In the meantime," Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Bill Pulte will remain as the Acting Director of National Intelligence."
The practical effect of all that maneuvering: the same man critics tried to stop is still inside ODNI with a mandate to root out the Deep State. Trump told The Wall Street Journal he wanted Pulte to "start the process" of cutting personnel, describing the acting role as "less shackled" — free to move without the constraints of Senate confirmation. Whatever leverage critics thought they'd gained with Clayton's nomination evaporated the moment Trump hit send on that Truth Social post.
That framing matters. A confirmed director answers to the senators who approved him. Clayton, if confirmed, would have owed something to every senator who voted yes. Pulte owes nothing to anyone except the man who put him there — and that man wants deep state cuts.
Pulte previously ran the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he'd already demonstrated a willingness to restructure staffing. ODNI is a different animal — it sits atop the entire intelligence apparatus — but the approach appears identical: walk in, pull the roster, identify the weight, cut it.
The Democratic response was immediate and predictable. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut fired off a joint letter expressing concern. "We are concerned that your record demonstrates a willingness to misuse your position," they wrote. That's the polished version of "please stop firing our people."
Warner and Himes aren't random critics. They're the ranking members on the Senate and House intelligence committees, respectively. Their objection carries institutional weight. But institutional weight hasn't stopped a single DOGE-era termination yet, and there's no indication it'll stop these.
The firings also land in the middle of an unresolved fight over FISA Section 702 — the provision that allows warrantless surveillance of non-Americans outside the United States. The controversy over Pulte's original appointment helped kill FISA reauthorization before it expired, and Trump has now made reauthorization a condition for Clayton's confirmation hearing. Critics within the Trump coalition have argued for years that intelligence agencies weaponized these tools domestically and that the bureaucratic infrastructure enabling that abuse remains intact. Pulte's personnel cuts are happening in exactly that environment.
Pulte isn't just trimming headcount, either. Outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard spent her final days in office making referrals to the Department of Justice — including referrals involving Sen. Adam Schiff of California, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The intelligence community's leadership transition isn't a polite handoff. It's a changing of the guard where the outgoing officer left a stack of criminal referrals on the desk.
When critics pointed out that Pulte has no intelligence background, Trump responded on social media: "No, but he's INTELLIGENT, unlike a lot of other people!" The intelligence community's credentialed professionals have presided over the Russia hoax, the COVID origins coverup, and the domestic surveillance abuses that FISA critics have spent years documenting. A fresh set of eyes with a mandate to cut may not be the liability critics are suggesting.
The Democrats who pushed back hardest on Pulte are the same ones now watching him fire their people. Their best move was Clayton. Trump agreed — and then cancelled the hearing.
The people who spent careers watching Americans are now watching the door.
