WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday indicated that he will not nominate mortgage regulator Bill Pulte to be the nation’s intelligence chief once his temporary appointment expires early next year.
His comments follow a backlash against Pulte’s appointment as acting director of national intelligence from Democrats and some key senators of his Republican Party over the Trump loyalist’s lack of national security experience.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump indicated he would not nominate Pulte to serve permanently as the overseer of the 18-agency U.S. intelligence community.
That would require Senate confirmation, something that Republican leaders have suggested would be difficult for Pulte to win. The law that created the position requires that nominees possess extensive national security experience.
“I don’t think he would want to be permanent, but he is a very smart guy, and he may find out some things about the rigged elections,” Trump said, apparently referring to his discredited claim about the 2020 vote that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
“It’s short-term, but he may be very effective for a short period of time,” Trump said.
Some lawmakers have expressed concerns that Pulte, who has pushed for mortgage fraud probes of Trump’s perceived foes, could do the same thing using the access he will have to top-secret information as acting director of national intelligence.
None of those targeted by Pulte have been criminally charged.
Trump on Tuesday tapped Pulte to take over as interim director of national intelligence when Tulsi Gabbard leaves the post on June 30. He would be limited to serving 210 days.
Gabbard has been involved in White House-directed efforts to find evidence proving Trump’s unproven allegation that he lost the 2020 election due to foreign hacking of electronic voting machines.
Pulte’s appointment has jeopardized Democratic votes that Republicans need to reauthorize a key foreign communications monitoring authority — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — before it expires on June 12.
While he backs renewal of the authority, Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has warned it will be difficult to find Democrats to support renewal of the authority unless Trump withdraws Pulte’s appointment.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson in Washington; Writing by Bhargav Acharya and Jonathan Landay; Editing by David Ljunggren, Don Durfee and Matthew Lewis)
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