President Donald Trump has tapped Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to become acting director of national intelligence, a move that has helped derail congressional efforts to extend a key U.S. surveillance authority under FISA Section 702 ahead of a Friday deadline.
President Donald Trump said he has selected Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), to serve as acting director of national intelligence, elevating a close ally with little national-security experience to oversee the U.S. intelligence community.
Trump announced the decision in a post on Truth Social, praising Pulte’s experience handling what he called “the most sensitive matters” and pointing to his work overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through the FHFA.
The appointment has become entangled with Congress’s effort to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a major foreign-intelligence collection authority that lawmakers have been debating amid long-running concerns about privacy and past compliance problems. Democrats and some Republicans have said Pulte’s selection disrupted negotiations and hardened opposition to moving a reauthorization bill.
On Thursday, the House rejected a short-term extension as the deadline approached, heightening the likelihood of a lapse. Democratic leaders said they could not support extending the authority without reforms and criticized the administration’s decision to install Pulte as acting intelligence chief.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, has raised concerns about putting a partisan figure in the job, while Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has criticized the timing as Congress was trying to reach a deal on Section 702.
Trump has sought to portray Pulte’s tenure as temporary, saying the administration is interviewing candidates for a permanent director and urging lawmakers to approve a short-term extension while the White House settles on a nominee. Hours after the House vote, Trump said he would nominate Jay Clayton, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to serve as director of national intelligence.
