National security professionals inside the Trump administration are outraged after President Donald Trump made one of the worst appointments in his political tenure, according to one expert.
David Rothkopf, a columnist for The Daily Beast, said on a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" on Monday that insiders he's spoken with were shocked when Trump appointed Bill Pulte, the administration's former mortgage chief, as the next Director of National Intelligence. Rothkopf said his sources were outraged by Pulte's willingness to do what Trump tells him and his lack of experience in the role, which is defined by federal law.
"When I talk to people in the national security community or when you see the petitions that have been circulated, there is a consensus that Bill [Pulte] is the worst appointment Trump has ever made because he has absolutely zero experience in intelligence, something even Marco Rubio, the butt-kisser of all time, acknowledged he has no intelligence experience," Rothkopf said.
Trump appointed Pulte to replace former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from the administration over her husband's health. Pulte, the former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was a homebuilder before joining the Trump administration and has never held an intelligence job.
Federal law requires anyone appointed to the Director of National Intelligence role to have "extensive" intelligence experience.
"He is purely being picked because he will do exactly what Trump says," Rothkopf added, noting Pulte's willingness to cook up investigations against Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud. "Trump wants him there because he thinks that the intel community can help him invalidate upcoming elections, which is his main job. And he also thinks he can help him go after his adversaries, possibly even help him shred information that might be incriminating to Trump."
"But when I talk to people at the CIA, when I talk to people who are formerly national intelligence people, I spoke to somebody from the [Defense Intelligence Agency] over the weekend — they are outraged," he continued.