Everybody Hates Bill Pulte

That is, everyone except Donald Trump.

Bill Pulte for director of national intelligence? Really?

President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social Tuesday that he is appointing William J. Pulte to be acting director of national intelligence, following the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard. Pulte is director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in which capacity Pulte has also appointed himself chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association (a.k.a. Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (a.k.a. Freddie Mac)—two government-sponsored (and, since 2008, government-controlled) enterprises assigned the task of keeping houses affordable. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pursue this goal by buying and securitizing mortgages. Trump said Pulte will retain these three posts while he serves as director of national intelligence.

Why anybody would pile more responsibilities onto the guy who’s supposed to keep housing affordable when the country is in the midst of a housing-affordability crisis is a question we’ll leave to another day. (The short answer is that Trump doesn’t give a damn about the affordability crisis, and indeed exasperates his handlers by frequently mocking the very word “affordability.”) The question critics are racing to ask right now is why Trump would give the post to someone with no experience. “He knows absolutely nothing about intelligence,” said Virginia Senator Mark Warner. “He has no background at all.”

That isn’t quite right. Pulte has quite a lot of experience using his position at FHFA to gather intelligence on the mortgages held by Trump’s enemies. That is perhaps what Trump meant in his Truth Social post when he said Pulte had “deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America.”

It was Pulte who persuaded Trump to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on the grounds that she engaged in “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct” for claiming........

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