Bill Pulte won’t be running the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a long time, but President Donald Trump will use the acting DNI’s tenure to all but eliminate a federal agency he’s long privately despised, according to Trumpworld insiders.
Trump’s “entire political career” could be characterized as “taking on the deep state,” one former senior Trump White House aide told the Washington Examiner, “and with Pulte, you’re seeing the president take that matter into his own hands.”
A veteran, out-of-government adviser to the president claimed Trump has long believed ODNI should not “exist” and that the CIA should oversee the U.S. intelligence community.
Two former Trump national security officials noted to the Washington Examiner that CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who served as acting DNI to conclude Trump’s first term, chose not to reclaim his old job in favor of leading the CIA, as Trump openly mulled ways to eliminate or sideline ODNI and the so-called deep state before reentering office last January.
“CIA is a way better job. DNI is like a fake, bulls*** agency. It was created post-9/11 because we were like, ‘Oh, there wasn’t intelligence sharing,’” said one former senior Trump White House official. “It’s just sort of like a bureaucratic warehouse. The CIA has its own, practically, paramilitary. The DNI does not have that. It’s a repository, essentially, and it doesn’t have any real power.”
Trump himself hasn’t exactly made his plans for the agency a secret, either. On Friday, he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that he directed Pulte to “start the process” of firing certain agency staffers, suggesting “it might be good for him to shake it up” before Trump’s full-time DNI nominee makes it to the confirmation process.
For the nearly 60 years following World War II, the U.S. intelligence apparatus was overseen by the CIA director in a concurrent posting as the director of central intelligence. However, a bill approved by Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks created the DNI to oversee all of intelligence. Furthermore, the law actively prohibited the director of the CIA or any of the other 17 intelligence agencies from concurrently serving as DNI.
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It wasn’t until Trump’s first term that DNI was raised to a Cabinet-level position, a decision that a second former Trump White House staffer says the president is living to regret.
“I think the idea of elevating DNI was to have more direct oversight over the deep state. I do think that’s true,” that person told the Washington Examiner, even while adding that Trump’s supposed purge of the agency saddles Republicans with “just another few weeks of us talking about some of the positive stuff he’s done,” to address the affordability issue and other midterm concerns of voters.
ODNI had steadily grown in size since its creation and the start of Trump’s first term in 2017. At the time, ODNI boasted roughly 2,000 staffers, but that number already began to creep down to 1,700 by the time the president started his second term. Outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard further trimmed the office’s staff by roughly 50% during her time serving in the Trump administration.
Even former CIA Director John Brennan, often described by Trump as one of the worst deep state offenders, said on MS NOW over the weekend that, despite his view that ODNI is a critical agency, the office could be streamlined.
“Does the legislation need to be tweaked a bit? I would argue yes. Can there be some changes inside of the office? Are there some redundancies there? I think any organization can go through some of those reforms,” Brennan said. “But having a Bill Pulte come in without any experience or understanding of the intelligence community, to come in and, as you say, ‘DOGE it’ — I don’t see that he’s going to have the capability and the insight and the experience to be able to do this effectively and not hurt our national security.”
Still, eliminating the office entirely, similar to Trump’s push to end the Department of Education, would require new legislation. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced a bill to reduce the ODNI footprint last summer, and he reaffirmed his support for Trump’s plans late last week.
“President Trump is right: the ODNI has grown far beyond its original mandate. I’ve long advocated for downsizing, if not outright eliminating, this bureaucracy,” Cotton posted on X. “Time to return these officers back to their home agencies to focus on actual intelligence work.”
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Passing such a bill is virtually impossible in an election year, but a former senior White House aide told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s plans won’t be deterred, even if it costs him political capital.
“Trump is doing whatever the hell he wants to do, on every front, right? Why does he do anything? Because it’s what he wants to do,” that person said. “I mean, it’s kind of an insane pitch, but he pardoned the J6ers the first day in office. Why is anyone surprised he’s trying to do this now?”