Bill Pulte (Executive Session)

Text in the Record

Bill Pulte

President Trump has installed a loyalist, Bill Pulte, as the Acting Director of National Intelligence. He has zero national security experience. He has worked with the private sector and in real estate. He has never had a security clearance before this job. He has never handled classified information before this job. And now, today, at this moment, he heads up 18 different intelligence Agencies in the United States. He used to be the head of Federal Housing--that was his job given by President Trump--and he demonstrated his character at that job. He used Housing records--private Housing records--to go after President Trump's enemies. Just think of what is possible with him at the top of our intelligence community. Now, President Trump placed him there to do two things: One, to focus on politicizing our elections; and, secondly, to use the intelligence community for the goals he has because he is obsessed with meddling with both. You just have to use President Trump's own words to understand the story here. This isn't hyperbole. At the State of the Union, President Trump declared that the only way Democrats could win in the midterms is if they cheat. Just weeks earlier, he called for Republicans to ``nationalize'' elections in 15 states. This year alone, he has repeated claims that the elections are rigged more than 100 times. Those words have been backed up by action. He has attempted to seize ballots in Georgia, my home State of Michigan, and Arizona. He has sued 30 States in total for their voter rolls. He has pushed Congress over and over again to pass the SAVE America Act, which would disenfranchise millions of voters across the country. He dismantled the Election Assistance Commission, which helps every State carry out their elections. He has pushed the postal service to restrict mail-in voting. He has refused to rule out sending U.S. uniformed troops or law enforcement to the polls to interfere in the elections come November. And he has pressed the Supreme Court to go after and gut parts of the Voting Rights Act, allowing States to silence the voters, particularly minority voters. Second, he has tried to weaponize our intelligence community. He has declassified information to support false claims about elections and sow doubt in our democracy. He has directed the CIA, the NSA, and other intelligence Agencies to target his enemies. He has created a weaponization working group to implement that order. And he has sent the former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to raid ballots in Fulton County, GA; something that the intelligence community has no business doing. Now, President Trump is giving a speech tonight. Bill Pulte is now at the center of this. President Trump was very open; he tweeted about putting him in this job specifically to use the intelligence community's power to support his false claims. Tonight, in the President's address to the Nation, he is expected to say how, again, our elections are being rigged and attempt to cherry- pick intelligence to declassify. But let us remember: Whatever he brings up, President Trump's team already saw what happened in 2020. He was the President of the United States during those elections. If his intelligence community at that time saw information, looked it over, and then decided that the election wasn't rigged, that was because that was what was presented to them as factual. You are telling me that the President now, all these years later, wants to relitigate what he was in charge of in 2020, and choosing to do it 3 months before the midterm elections. Call me skeptical. And all of this is happening as Bill Pulte is right there as our Acting DNI. Tulsi Gabbard going down to Georgia was not enough to soothe the President. Bill Pulte is now his yes-man to do just that. He has gone from being unqualified for this role to dangerous to democracy. With the bill, we will ensure that people who serve as the Acting Director of National Intelligence actually have some national security experience needed to do this job, they treat it responsibly, not on behalf of one party, not on behalf of one man but on behalf of Americans, to keep us safe. That is the mandate of the intelligence community. It is what we were trained to do--and I say that as a CIA officer--and this President is corrupting that with his choice as DNI. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

Read it in the Congressional Record (opens in a new tab)