All posts tagged "Bill Pulte"

President Donald Trump's behavior behind closed doors has grown erratic enough to rattle the people closest to him, according to a new report.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that a sense of gloom has descended on the White House less than a week before Election Day, with the president shrinking his circle of confidants, lashing out at detractors and brushing aside polls that show how unpopular he has become. The Times spoke with 16 current and former administration officials and Trump allies, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Many Republicans in competitive races have tried to put space between themselves and the president, and some GOP advisers and outside groups have privately cautioned his aides that his battleground rallies may hurt more than help. Trump has brushed off those concerns, determined to make the midterms a referendum on himself....

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) blasted a top Trump official Thursday for gutting the watchdog that polices his agency, causing him to melt down.

Bill Pulte, who leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has moved to sharply shrink the office of the agency's inspector general, The New York Times reported. The move led congressional Democrats to call for his resignation.

At a hearing Thursday, Warren accused Pulte of "unlawfully shutting down the work of the inspector general responsible for investigating misconduct at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and in multitrillion-dollar mortgage markets," per The Times....

The outgoing director of national intelligence spent his last days on the job bragging about unproven firings, per the New York Times.

Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, is expected to be replaced on Tuesday by Jay Clayton after a short-lived stint as President Donald Trump's spy chief. During his last days and hours on the job, Pulte bragged that he reduced staff at the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI), a claim ex-officials doubt, according to reporting by the Times.

The Times noted a "flurry of social media posts" by Pulte. In a Tuesday post on X, he wrote, "We are, this morning, Executing a 5th and near final round of Terminations, an approximately 30 percent Staff Reduction from Weeks ago."...

A GOP analyst and former White House insider revealed that as President Donald Trump has shown signs of "dictatorial dementia," energetic "young henchmen" around him are in a hurry to reshape the government — even rushing to conduct mass firings.

Bill Kristol, the editor at large for The Bulwark and a former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, described how 80-year-old Trump has surrounded himself with young men. Acting director of national intelligence Bill Pulte is 38 years old, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is 40, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and FBI Director Kash Patel are all 46 years old. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is 51, and Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought is 50.

"A sense of impending mortality seems to be making our president even more unhinged than ever," Kristol wrote....

A national security expert flagged the impact of one of President Donald Trump's moves that effectively allowed a key U.S. spy tool to expire.

During an appearance on CNN, Leon Panetta, the former CIA director under former President Barack Obama and White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, expressed concern about the expiration of a key part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

House lawmakers refused to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA earlier this month in response to Trump's pick for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte. When Trump refused to drop Pulte, FISA lapsed, and Panetta explained what losing FISA means for national security....

President Donald Trump's order to halt the nomination process for director of national intelligence sent Republican lawmakers scrambling on Wednesday, according to CNN.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) announced just an hour before Jay Clayton, Trump's pick for the job, was set to testify before the Senate confirmation hearing that it was being postponed after the president told Clayton not to show up, CNN anchor Brianna Keilar reported.

"The president is accusing lawmakers of moving too fast to confirm Clayton, and he's vowing to hold up a critical spying measure, FISA reauthorization, unless a separate voter ID measure, separate and unrelated, by the way, is attached to it," Keilar explained....