Pulte to be acting DNI for 'a month or two' and can 'declassify almost everything,' Trump says
Source: Politico
07/01/2026 10:28 AM EDT
President Donald Trump said acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte would be in his role for “a month or two months or something” and is empowered to “declassify almost everything,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
In the meantime, Jay Clayton, the president’s nominee for the full-time DNI post, will have his confirmation hearing in two weeks, Trump said. “Bill is there just for a fairly short period of time,” he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “But while he’s there, I said you can declassify whatever you want.”
Trump’s comments come after he killed a Senate plan last month to quickly confirm Clayton as the new DNI, paving the way for Pulte to helm the agency on a temporary basis. He told The Wall Street Journal in early June that a “less shackled” Pulte would be more capable of enacting radical change throughout the office in an acting capacity.
Senators have largely responded positively to Clayton’s nomination for DNI. But the president’s insistence that Pulte — the Federal Housing Finance Agency director best known for claiming Trump’s political enemies committed mortgage fraud — get a spin helming the agency ground congressional business to a halt.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/01/pulte-intelligence-declassification-00983648
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