President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he told his new acting intelligence director, Bill Pulte, to “declassify almost everything” before a permanent replacement to head the office is confirmed.
“Bill is there just for a fairly short period of time. But while he’s there, I said you can declassify whatever you want,” Trump told reporters as he was heading to an event in North Dakota on July 1.
“I think that Bill will declassify,” he said.
The decision to name Pulte as the acting head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has drawn the ire of many Democrats and some Republicans, who argued last month that he isn’t qualified.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that Pulte is “someone who will be willing to shape intelligence around the president’s wishes” and that Pulte lacks sufficient expertise in U.S. national intelligence.
Among the GOP senators, John Cornyn (R-Texas), also a member of the Intelligence Committee, stated that he witnessed “no evidence of qualifications for that job,” while Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said Pulte “doesn’t seem qualified.”
Citing concerns about Pulte, congressional Democrats allowed a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to lapse in mid-June. It allows the U.S. government to obtain communications from foreign nationals who are outside the United States.
Later, Trump announced that Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), would be tapped to be his director of national intelligence. The decisions were made after former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said she would be leaving the position, citing her husband’s battle with cancer.
Trump praised both men during his remarks to the media on Wednesday. He added that “Jay Clayton is going through the process” while saying, “And Jay Clayton, highly respected. And so is Bill Pulte.”
The president also noted to reporters on Wednesday that Pulte, a federal housing agency director, will be in the role only until Clayton is confirmed by the Senate. He said a confirmation hearing will be held in about two weeks.
Previously, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he wants Pulte to effectively clean house by removing staffers who are holdovers from previous administrations. He said that Pulte could enjoy greater latitude in firing people because he’s only there temporarily.
“I’d like to see it smaller. I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn’t be there,” Trump told the outlet in early June.
Trump suggested to the Wall Street Journal that the office could “even be terminated,” noting efforts to downsize or remove other agencies within the federal government, such as the Department of Education under Secretary Linda McMahon.
“We’ve made the Department of Education much smaller, and likewise, this should be much smaller,” he said.
