Rundown: Trump sees the DNI as is a position from which foreign interference in US elections can be ‘investigated,’ and any shred of evidence, whether credible or not, used as a pretext for federal involvement in elections.
The House failed to pass an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) today. This all but insures that FISA, the post-911 law that allows the federal government to spy on foreign targets outside of the U.S. without a warrant, will expire tomorrow night.
This is primarily due to President Trump’s decision to name Bill Pulte, someone with no intelligence, security, or military experience, to the position of acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI). As head of the nation’s intelligence, DNI is so critical that the law requires a nominee to “have extensive national security expertise.” Trump named Pulte as Acting regardless. The question is why? What interests of the president is Pulte going to serve in this Acting DNI capacity?
The activities of his predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, help tell the story.
From the time of her appointment, Gabbard’s most notable activities were putting out memos and other material accusing President Obama and his administration of committing treason by subverting Trump’s election victory in 2016 (there is no evidence for this). Her second claim to fame was taking part in a raid of Fulton County Georgia’s election office where ballots pertaining to the 2020 election were seized. She later told the Senate that the president requested her presence.
Trump has already said that he expects Pulte to do the same, beginning with investigating the 2020 election. Following his appointment, Trump told reporters that “you may find out some things about the rigged elections.” Of course, Pulte is the perfect person for this given the lengths to which he has shown he will go to take down Trump’s enemies. And if he can do that from an obscure housing office, imagine what he can do in 200+ days as the head of the entire U.S. intelligence community?
Trump does not see the need for a DNI with intelligence experience because he has no use for non-partisan intelligence gathering. Instead, Trump sees the DNI as is a position from which foreign interference in US elections can be ‘investigated,’ and any shred of evidence, whether credible or not, used as a pretext for getting the federal government involved in election supervision.
How bad might it get? Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and Vice Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence described what Pulte could do from this position a few days ago:
“What he could do is take a single piece of intelligence that may not be corroborated or make something up and say, country X is going to interfere or is sending people to encourage non-citizens to vote, and that be used as an excuse for Trump to bring in ICE, federal troops close down elections, seize polling stations. The list is extraordinarily frightening, and again, this guy doesn’t have any national security background.”
Likewise, John Sipher who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for decades, put it this way:
“A director determined to politicize intelligence does not need to overtly fabricate. A bad actor can do something more subtle, and often more effective — such as treating the intelligence community as a private detective agency for the president… It is easy to declassify and publish one document but not another; highlight a raw report while burying the caveats; emphasize one dissenting view while concealing the broader consensus; strip context from reporting; and turn uncertainty into an accusation.”
