Senate Republicans started last week with a plan. Just days after Donald Trump announced his plan to nominate Jay Clayton to succeed Tulsi Gabbard as the next director of national intelligence, GOP leaders said the federal prosecutor was so uncontroversial that they hoped to confirm him by the end of the week, which would have been a rare example of remarkable congressional efficiency.

The president, however, didn’t want the Senate to confirm his own DNI nominee. Instead, Trump wanted his other choice — Bill Pulte, the highly controversial director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — to take the reins as the acting DNI.

He didn’t go into a lot of detail as to why Pulte’s appointment was such a priority, though Trump did recently declare that he expects Pulte to use his new office to perhaps “find out some things about the rigged elections,” reinforcing obvious concerns about the unqualified housing official playing the role of a partisan weapon in pursuit of Trump’s conspiracy theories.

It was against this backdrop that Politico reported late last week that Pulte had already directed staffers “to pull together a list of about 300 candidates to be fired from the National Counterterrorism Center in the coming weeks.” CNN published a related report about Pulte “raising alarm bells among intelligence officials” before his first day even began.

While the reports have not been independently verified by MS NOW, they did generate attention on Capitol Hill. Rep. Jim Jimes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a written statement, “If the reports of Bill Pulte’s arrival at ODNI [the Office of the Director of National Intelligence] are true, they demonstrate why he should never spend a minute as Director of National Intelligence, a role he is legally not qualified to perform. I am particularly concerned by reporting that he may undertake a sweeping firing of intelligence professionals, following on major cuts already undertaken last year.”

As this week gets underway, the concerns have intensified. The New York Times reported:

The new acting director of national intelligence is expected to announce significant cuts to his office as early as Monday, current and former officials said, prompting a warning from the top Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees.

In a letter on Monday to Bill Pulte, who was installed by President Trump as acting director of national intelligence on Friday, Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia warned him against making substantial cuts to his office or declassifying information that could compromise sources.

“We are concerned that your record as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency demonstrates a willingness to misuse your position, including your access to sensitive information, to pursue President Trump’s perceived political enemies and further his retributive political agenda,” Warner and Himes wrote.

The Democratic lawmakers — the ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, respectively — went on to remind the new acting DNI to follow “established policies and practices” and consult career intelligence officials before declassifying anything.

“Given the extremely sensitive nature of intelligence, we expect that you will not declassify properly classified information that would compromise intelligence sources and methods, or weaponize the declassification process for partisan political purposes,” they wrote.

We’ll learn soon enough about just how radical Pulte intends to be in the role, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that the president told The Wall Street Journal two weeks ago that his acting DNI, who apparently didn’t have the security clearance needed to do the job, should quickly start firing U.S. intelligence professionals without having to worry too much about the “shackles” that come with congressional oversight or accountability. Watch this space.

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