{"id":654,"date":"2026-06-26T13:09:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654"},"modified":"2026-06-26T13:09:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:09:01","slug":"inside-the-trump-and-pulte-purge-fueling-an-intel-civil-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654","title":{"rendered":"Inside The Trump And Pulte Purge Fueling An Intel Civil War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON \u2014 Bill Pulte walked into his new role as Director of National Intelligence and immediately asked for names of officials to cut. He was on a mission to do what President Donald Trump had asked of him: \u201cexecute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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That mission has set off a firestorm within the intelligence community. The Daily Wire has learned that Pulte is working closely with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who view DNI\u2019s oversight as a hindrance to individual intelligence agencies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Their opponents argue that downsizing and cutting ODNI\u2019s oversight only enables the very deep state that Trump so adamantly wants to root out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s mandate to Pulte didn\u2019t expressly say to fire people, but instead to send them back to their home agencies. That appears to be largely what Pulte is doing: since he took over, more than 50 ODNI staff have been removed from their jobs, an administration official confirmed to The Daily Wire. Forty-five of those individuals were returned to their home agencies, while six career officials were fired.<\/span><\/p>\n

A senate source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire that Pulte is working closely with Cotton and Ratcliffe, as well as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.\u00a0 Contrary to media reporting, that senate advisor said, the senators like Pulte and enjoy working with him. Asked about reports that Pulte\u2019s cuts have been contradictory or disorganized, the senate source pushed back, saying: \u201cHis cuts have been deliberate.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The CIA would not comment directly on Ratcliffe\u2019s interactions with Pulte, but spokeswoman Liz Lyons told The Daily Wire that Ratcliffe \u201ccontinues to support acting DNI Pulte\u2019s mission to advance the President\u2019s priorities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

ODNI did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/p>\n

News that Pulte would assume the acting DNI role sparked massive backlash from Democrats and some Republicans. Critics pointed to his lack of intelligence experience and said he\u2019d be a hatchet man for the president. Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters in early June: \u201cWe don\u2019t need a weaponized DNI.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His treatment of the outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard drew criticism as well. Gabbard was supposed to stay in her role until the end of June, but Pulte, eager to get started (and make use of his limited time as acting<\/em> DNI), aggressively <\/span>pushed for Gabbard to leave early, a senior intelligence official shared. The move angered Gabbard\u2019s supporters, particularly because Gabbard had agreed to a particular timeline with President Trump in light of her husband\u2019s cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n

One notable Pulte victim was Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, who was placed on administrative leave. He led the intelligence community\u2019s \u201ccollaborative integration efforts and primary intelligence support to policymakers through the President\u2019s Daily Brief and the National Intelligence Council,\u201d<\/span> CBS News first reported<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some conservatives worry Pulte\u2019s cuts will result in a weakened ODNI that can\u2019t rein in rogue agencies like the FBI and CIA. Under Gabbard\u2019s direction, DNI had already cut 40% of staff, leaving the agency with less than 1,400 employees, compared to the estimated 38,000 of the FBI and 20,000 of the CIA.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe mistake is they\u2019re getting rid of people who are loyal to POTUS,\u201d a former intelligence official alleged, \u201cand if they get rid of ODNI there is no one to do actual effective oversight of the Intelligence Community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

ODNI\u2019s supporters also point to the recent weaponization of the FBI, for example, against Trump and his allies under President Joe Biden, arguing that the bureau still is staffed with agents that were part of this weaponization and that oversight is still needed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe DNI manages the National Intelligence Program budget, giving the ODNI real fiscal leverage over FBI Counterintelligence operations,\u201d a second former intelligence official said. \u201cGiven that the FBI Counterintelligence Division has been completely rogue since Trump came down the escalator, and because Congress has proven itself incapable of conducting any real oversight of the FBI and CIA, the Trump Administration should be cautious when liquidating a component of the USG with true oversight ability.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Congress has oversight over the FBI and the CIA, but at the end of the day, the lawmakers are only briefed on what the agencies choose to tell them. <\/span>In some cases, the senior intelligence official said, Congress will never know \u201cunless shit goes so badly that they can\u2019t hide it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DNI position was created after 9\/11. Before, the CIA director effectively ran the entire intelligence community in addition to his own agency.<\/p>\n

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Cotton outright made the case that things may have been better off then on the Senate floor this week:<\/span>\u00a0\u201cUnfortunately,\u201d he said, \u201cI think we can now assess a couple decades on, that it is something of a failed experiment itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Arkansas lawmaker, who said he wants ODNI to be downsized and streamlined, noted that ODNI does serve some functions that could possibly be \u201cperformed elsewhere.\u201d He shared that he spoke with Pulte this week about sending officers back to their home agencies and reducing ODNI to its original size, but he denied reporting that \u201cmass firings\u201d had begun.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf Director Pulte can, in fact, take these steps in the right direction, I think that can benefit Jay Clayton once he is confirmed,\u201d Cotton shared. \u201cMr. Clayton will be able to inherit an organization that has already been downsized, and he can hit the ground running on day one, to continue that work, and to ensure that the DNI is promoting our intelligence communities\u2019 important work \u2014 not hindering it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Hardliners like Steve Bannon view Cotton\u2019s stance as an effort to promote the CIA.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham talking about this, it\u2019s not to go after the Deep State,\u201d argued Bannon on his show. \u201cIt\u2019s to downsize DNI from its administrative or supervisory function over the intelligence community to what I call \u2018CIA supremacism.’\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But other members of the intelligence community view ODNI as a massive hindrance to the work that they are trying to accomplish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One senior government official questioned the efficacy of the layered bureaucracy of ODNI and exactly what the agency accomplishes, noting, \u201cThey are not the action arm.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe action arm is the FBI. Gonna arrest a spy? The FBI does that. The information arm is the CIA and the NSA,\u201d the official noted. \u201c[ODNI] don\u2019t produce any intelligence either.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pulte is only serving as acting DNI\u00a0 \u2014 the president<\/span> chose Jay Clayton<\/span>, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as his nominee for permanent Director of National Intelligence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clayton has received strong support from numerous Republican senators, including Cotton and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, but Trump abruptly told Clayton not to attend his confirmation hearings earlier this month after lawmakers allowed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to lapse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking from Switzerland during his trip to the G7, the president said he\u2019ll leave Pulte as acting DNI \u201cas long as it takes to get everybody else approved.\u201d He noted that he is against FISA if it does not come with the SAVE America Act attached to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLook, he\u2019s a very legitimate guy,\u201d the president said of Pulte. \u201cHe\u2019s very smart. He\u2019s a brilliant guy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are they afraid of this guy?\u201d he added. \u201cI mean, they\u2019re so afraid of him, they\u2019ll do anything not to have Pulte go in there. He\u2019s a very capable guy, and they\u2019re worried about that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pulte is notoriously close to the president, and he certainly has the president\u2019s confidence for now. In the meantime, it appears that he will continue to downsize DNI. A senate advisor familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire of the cuts: \u201cI think this is the start, not the end.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2014 Bill Pulte walked into his new role as Director of National Intelligence and immediately asked for names of officials to cut. He was on a mission to do what President Donald Trump had asked of him: \u201cexecute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office.\u201d\u00a0That mission has set off a firestorm within the intelligence community. The Daily Wire has learned that Pulte is working closely with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who view DNI\u2019s oversight as a hindrance to individual intelligence agencies.\u00a0Their opponents argue that downsizing and cutting ODNI\u2019s oversight only enables the very deep state that Trump so adamantly wants to root out.\u00a0Trump\u2019s mandate to Pulte didn\u2019t expressly say to fire people, but instead to send them back to their home agencies. That appears to be largely what Pulte is doing: since he took over, more than 50 ODNI staff have been removed from their jobs, an administration official confirmed to The Daily Wire. Forty-five of those individuals were returned to their home agencies, while six career officials were fired.A senate source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire that Pulte is working closely with Cotton and Ratcliffe, as well as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.\u00a0 Contrary to media reporting, that senate advisor said, the senators like Pulte and enjoy working with him. Asked about reports that Pulte\u2019s cuts have been contradictory or disorganized, the senate source pushed back, saying: \u201cHis cuts have been deliberate.\u201d\u00a0The CIA would not comment directly on Ratcliffe\u2019s interactions with Pulte, but spokeswoman Liz Lyons told The Daily Wire that Ratcliffe \u201ccontinues to support acting DNI Pulte\u2019s mission to advance the President\u2019s priorities.\u201dODNI did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Daily Wire.News that Pulte would assume the acting DNI role sparked massive backlash from Democrats and some Republicans. Critics pointed to his lack of intelligence experience and said he\u2019d be a hatchet man for the president. Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters in early June: \u201cWe don\u2019t need a weaponized DNI.\u201d\u00a0His treatment of the outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard drew criticism as well. Gabbard was supposed to stay in her role until the end of June, but Pulte, eager to get started (and make use of his limited time as acting DNI), aggressively pushed for Gabbard to leave early, a senior intelligence official shared. The move angered Gabbard\u2019s supporters, particularly because Gabbard had agreed to a particular timeline with President Trump in light of her husband\u2019s cancer diagnosis.One notable Pulte victim was Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, who was placed on administrative leave. He led the intelligence community\u2019s \u201ccollaborative integration efforts and primary intelligence support to policymakers through the President\u2019s Daily Brief and the National Intelligence Council,\u201d CBS News first reported.Some conservatives worry Pulte\u2019s cuts will result in a weakened ODNI that can\u2019t rein in rogue agencies like the FBI and CIA. Under Gabbard\u2019s direction, DNI had already cut 40% of staff, leaving the agency with less than 1,400 employees, compared to the estimated 38,000 of the FBI and 20,000 of the CIA.\u201cThe mistake is they\u2019re getting rid of people who are loyal to POTUS,\u201d a former intelligence official alleged, \u201cand if they get rid of ODNI there is no one to do actual effective oversight of the Intelligence Community.\u201dODNI\u2019s supporters also point to the recent weaponization of the FBI, for example, against Trump and his allies under President Joe Biden, arguing that the bureau still is staffed with agents that were part of this weaponization and that oversight is still needed.\u00a0\u201cThe DNI manages the National Intelligence Program budget, giving the ODNI real fiscal leverage over FBI Counterintelligence operations,\u201d a second former intelligence official said. \u201cGiven that the FBI Counterintelligence Division has been completely rogue since Trump came down the escalator, and because Congress has proven itself incapable of conducting any real oversight of the FBI and CIA, the Trump Administration should be cautious when liquidating a component of the USG with true oversight ability.\u201d\u00a0Congress has oversight over the FBI and the CIA, but at the end of the day, the lawmakers are only briefed on what the agencies choose to tell them. In some cases, the senior intelligence official said, Congress will never know \u201cunless shit goes so badly that they can\u2019t hide it.\u201dThe DNI position was created after 9\/11. Before, the CIA director effectively ran the entire intelligence community in addition to his own agency.Cotton outright made the case that things may have been better off then on the Senate floor this week:\u00a0\u201cUnfortunately,\u201d he said, \u201cI think we can now assess a couple decades on, that it is something of a failed experiment itself.\u201d\u00a0The Arkansas lawmaker, who said he wants ODNI to be downsized and streamlined, noted that ODNI does serve some functions that could possibly be \u201cperformed elsewhere.\u201d He shared that he spoke with Pulte this week about sending officers back to their home agencies and reducing ODNI to its original size, but he denied reporting that \u201cmass firings\u201d had begun.\u00a0\u201cIf Director Pulte can, in fact, take these steps in the right direction, I think that can benefit Jay Clayton once he is confirmed,\u201d Cotton shared. \u201cMr. Clayton will be able to inherit an organization that has already been downsized, and he can hit the ground running on day one, to continue that work, and to ensure that the DNI is promoting our intelligence communities\u2019 important work \u2014 not hindering it.\u201d\u00a0Hardliners like Steve Bannon view Cotton\u2019s stance as an effort to promote the CIA.\u00a0\u201cWhen you see Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham talking about this, it\u2019s not to go after the Deep State,\u201d argued Bannon on his show. \u201cIt\u2019s to downsize DNI from its administrative or supervisory function over the intelligence community to what I call \u2018CIA supremacism.'\u201dBut other members of the intelligence community view ODNI as a massive hindrance to the work that they are trying to accomplish.\u00a0One senior government official questioned the efficacy of the layered bureaucracy of ODNI and exactly what the agency accomplishes, noting, \u201cThey are not the action arm.\u201d\u00a0\u201cThe action arm is the FBI. Gonna arrest a spy? The FBI does that. The information arm is the CIA and the NSA,\u201d the official noted. \u201c[ODNI] don\u2019t produce any intelligence either.\u201dPulte is only serving as acting DNI\u00a0 \u2014 the president chose Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as his nominee for permanent Director of National Intelligence.Clayton has received strong support from numerous Republican senators, including Cotton and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, but Trump abruptly told Clayton not to attend his confirmation hearings earlier this month after lawmakers allowed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to lapse.Speaking from Switzerland during his trip to the G7, the president said he\u2019ll leave Pulte as acting DNI \u201cas long as it takes to get everybody else approved.\u201d He noted that he is against FISA if it does not come with the SAVE America Act attached to it.\u201cLook, he\u2019s a very legitimate guy,\u201d the president said of Pulte. \u201cHe\u2019s very smart. He\u2019s a brilliant guy.\u201d\u201cWhy are they afraid of this guy?\u201d he added. \u201cI mean, they\u2019re so afraid of him, they\u2019ll do anything not to have Pulte go in there. He\u2019s a very capable guy, and they\u2019re worried about that.\u201dPulte is notoriously close to the president, and he certainly has the president\u2019s confidence for now. In the meantime, it appears that he will continue to downsize DNI. A senate advisor familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire of the cuts: \u201cI think this is the start, not the end.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2"],"yoast_head":"\nInside The Trump And Pulte Purge Fueling An Intel Civil War - Blue Route Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inside The Trump And Pulte Purge Fueling An Intel Civil War - Blue Route Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON \u2014 Bill Pulte walked into his new role as Director of National Intelligence and immediately asked for names of officials to cut. He was on a mission to do what President Donald Trump had asked of him: \u201cexecute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office.\u201d\u00a0That mission has set off a firestorm within the intelligence community. The Daily Wire has learned that Pulte is working closely with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who view DNI\u2019s oversight as a hindrance to individual intelligence agencies.\u00a0Their opponents argue that downsizing and cutting ODNI\u2019s oversight only enables the very deep state that Trump so adamantly wants to root out.\u00a0Trump\u2019s mandate to Pulte didn\u2019t expressly say to fire people, but instead to send them back to their home agencies. That appears to be largely what Pulte is doing: since he took over, more than 50 ODNI staff have been removed from their jobs, an administration official confirmed to The Daily Wire. Forty-five of those individuals were returned to their home agencies, while six career officials were fired.A senate source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire that Pulte is working closely with Cotton and Ratcliffe, as well as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.\u00a0 Contrary to media reporting, that senate advisor said, the senators like Pulte and enjoy working with him. Asked about reports that Pulte\u2019s cuts have been contradictory or disorganized, the senate source pushed back, saying: \u201cHis cuts have been deliberate.\u201d\u00a0The CIA would not comment directly on Ratcliffe\u2019s interactions with Pulte, but spokeswoman Liz Lyons told The Daily Wire that Ratcliffe \u201ccontinues to support acting DNI Pulte\u2019s mission to advance the President\u2019s priorities.\u201dODNI did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Daily Wire.News that Pulte would assume the acting DNI role sparked massive backlash from Democrats and some Republicans. Critics pointed to his lack of intelligence experience and said he\u2019d be a hatchet man for the president. Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters in early June: \u201cWe don\u2019t need a weaponized DNI.\u201d\u00a0His treatment of the outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard drew criticism as well. Gabbard was supposed to stay in her role until the end of June, but Pulte, eager to get started (and make use of his limited time as acting DNI), aggressively pushed for Gabbard to leave early, a senior intelligence official shared. The move angered Gabbard\u2019s supporters, particularly because Gabbard had agreed to a particular timeline with President Trump in light of her husband\u2019s cancer diagnosis.One notable Pulte victim was Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, who was placed on administrative leave. He led the intelligence community\u2019s \u201ccollaborative integration efforts and primary intelligence support to policymakers through the President\u2019s Daily Brief and the National Intelligence Council,\u201d CBS News first reported.Some conservatives worry Pulte\u2019s cuts will result in a weakened ODNI that can\u2019t rein in rogue agencies like the FBI and CIA. Under Gabbard\u2019s direction, DNI had already cut 40% of staff, leaving the agency with less than 1,400 employees, compared to the estimated 38,000 of the FBI and 20,000 of the CIA.\u201cThe mistake is they\u2019re getting rid of people who are loyal to POTUS,\u201d a former intelligence official alleged, \u201cand if they get rid of ODNI there is no one to do actual effective oversight of the Intelligence Community.\u201dODNI\u2019s supporters also point to the recent weaponization of the FBI, for example, against Trump and his allies under President Joe Biden, arguing that the bureau still is staffed with agents that were part of this weaponization and that oversight is still needed.\u00a0\u201cThe DNI manages the National Intelligence Program budget, giving the ODNI real fiscal leverage over FBI Counterintelligence operations,\u201d a second former intelligence official said. \u201cGiven that the FBI Counterintelligence Division has been completely rogue since Trump came down the escalator, and because Congress has proven itself incapable of conducting any real oversight of the FBI and CIA, the Trump Administration should be cautious when liquidating a component of the USG with true oversight ability.\u201d\u00a0Congress has oversight over the FBI and the CIA, but at the end of the day, the lawmakers are only briefed on what the agencies choose to tell them. In some cases, the senior intelligence official said, Congress will never know \u201cunless shit goes so badly that they can\u2019t hide it.\u201dThe DNI position was created after 9\/11. Before, the CIA director effectively ran the entire intelligence community in addition to his own agency.Cotton outright made the case that things may have been better off then on the Senate floor this week:\u00a0\u201cUnfortunately,\u201d he said, \u201cI think we can now assess a couple decades on, that it is something of a failed experiment itself.\u201d\u00a0The Arkansas lawmaker, who said he wants ODNI to be downsized and streamlined, noted that ODNI does serve some functions that could possibly be \u201cperformed elsewhere.\u201d He shared that he spoke with Pulte this week about sending officers back to their home agencies and reducing ODNI to its original size, but he denied reporting that \u201cmass firings\u201d had begun.\u00a0\u201cIf Director Pulte can, in fact, take these steps in the right direction, I think that can benefit Jay Clayton once he is confirmed,\u201d Cotton shared. \u201cMr. Clayton will be able to inherit an organization that has already been downsized, and he can hit the ground running on day one, to continue that work, and to ensure that the DNI is promoting our intelligence communities\u2019 important work \u2014 not hindering it.\u201d\u00a0Hardliners like Steve Bannon view Cotton\u2019s stance as an effort to promote the CIA.\u00a0\u201cWhen you see Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham talking about this, it\u2019s not to go after the Deep State,\u201d argued Bannon on his show. \u201cIt\u2019s to downsize DNI from its administrative or supervisory function over the intelligence community to what I call \u2018CIA supremacism.&apos;\u201dBut other members of the intelligence community view ODNI as a massive hindrance to the work that they are trying to accomplish.\u00a0One senior government official questioned the efficacy of the layered bureaucracy of ODNI and exactly what the agency accomplishes, noting, \u201cThey are not the action arm.\u201d\u00a0\u201cThe action arm is the FBI. Gonna arrest a spy? The FBI does that. The information arm is the CIA and the NSA,\u201d the official noted. \u201c[ODNI] don\u2019t produce any intelligence either.\u201dPulte is only serving as acting DNI\u00a0 \u2014 the president chose Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as his nominee for permanent Director of National Intelligence.Clayton has received strong support from numerous Republican senators, including Cotton and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, but Trump abruptly told Clayton not to attend his confirmation hearings earlier this month after lawmakers allowed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to lapse.Speaking from Switzerland during his trip to the G7, the president said he\u2019ll leave Pulte as acting DNI \u201cas long as it takes to get everybody else approved.\u201d He noted that he is against FISA if it does not come with the SAVE America Act attached to it.\u201cLook, he\u2019s a very legitimate guy,\u201d the president said of Pulte. \u201cHe\u2019s very smart. He\u2019s a brilliant guy.\u201d\u201cWhy are they afraid of this guy?\u201d he added. \u201cI mean, they\u2019re so afraid of him, they\u2019ll do anything not to have Pulte go in there. He\u2019s a very capable guy, and they\u2019re worried about that.\u201dPulte is notoriously close to the president, and he certainly has the president\u2019s confidence for now. In the meantime, it appears that he will continue to downsize DNI. A senate advisor familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire of the cuts: \u201cI think this is the start, not the end.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blue Route Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-26T13:09:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/?p=654#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/?p=654\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/19da116f8d79cf8987781569801c6b7c\"},\"headline\":\"Inside The Trump And Pulte Purge Fueling An Intel Civil War\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-26T13:09:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/?p=654\"},\"wordCount\":1368,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/?p=654#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/80d48f38f827f9dc448c7fe18f7bd07e.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/?p=654#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/?p=654\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blueroutejournal.com\\\/?p=654\",\"name\":\"Inside The Trump And Pulte Purge Fueling An Intel Civil War - 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Blue Route Journal","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Inside The Trump And Pulte Purge Fueling An Intel Civil War - Blue Route Journal","og_description":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Bill Pulte walked into his new role as Director of National Intelligence and immediately asked for names of officials to cut. He was on a mission to do what President Donald Trump had asked of him: \u201cexecute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office.\u201d\u00a0That mission has set off a firestorm within the intelligence community. The Daily Wire has learned that Pulte is working closely with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who view DNI\u2019s oversight as a hindrance to individual intelligence agencies.\u00a0Their opponents argue that downsizing and cutting ODNI\u2019s oversight only enables the very deep state that Trump so adamantly wants to root out.\u00a0Trump\u2019s mandate to Pulte didn\u2019t expressly say to fire people, but instead to send them back to their home agencies. That appears to be largely what Pulte is doing: since he took over, more than 50 ODNI staff have been removed from their jobs, an administration official confirmed to The Daily Wire. Forty-five of those individuals were returned to their home agencies, while six career officials were fired.A senate source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire that Pulte is working closely with Cotton and Ratcliffe, as well as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.\u00a0 Contrary to media reporting, that senate advisor said, the senators like Pulte and enjoy working with him. Asked about reports that Pulte\u2019s cuts have been contradictory or disorganized, the senate source pushed back, saying: \u201cHis cuts have been deliberate.\u201d\u00a0The CIA would not comment directly on Ratcliffe\u2019s interactions with Pulte, but spokeswoman Liz Lyons told The Daily Wire that Ratcliffe \u201ccontinues to support acting DNI Pulte\u2019s mission to advance the President\u2019s priorities.\u201dODNI did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Daily Wire.News that Pulte would assume the acting DNI role sparked massive backlash from Democrats and some Republicans. Critics pointed to his lack of intelligence experience and said he\u2019d be a hatchet man for the president. Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters in early June: \u201cWe don\u2019t need a weaponized DNI.\u201d\u00a0His treatment of the outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard drew criticism as well. Gabbard was supposed to stay in her role until the end of June, but Pulte, eager to get started (and make use of his limited time as acting DNI), aggressively pushed for Gabbard to leave early, a senior intelligence official shared. The move angered Gabbard\u2019s supporters, particularly because Gabbard had agreed to a particular timeline with President Trump in light of her husband\u2019s cancer diagnosis.One notable Pulte victim was Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, who was placed on administrative leave. He led the intelligence community\u2019s \u201ccollaborative integration efforts and primary intelligence support to policymakers through the President\u2019s Daily Brief and the National Intelligence Council,\u201d CBS News first reported.Some conservatives worry Pulte\u2019s cuts will result in a weakened ODNI that can\u2019t rein in rogue agencies like the FBI and CIA. Under Gabbard\u2019s direction, DNI had already cut 40% of staff, leaving the agency with less than 1,400 employees, compared to the estimated 38,000 of the FBI and 20,000 of the CIA.\u201cThe mistake is they\u2019re getting rid of people who are loyal to POTUS,\u201d a former intelligence official alleged, \u201cand if they get rid of ODNI there is no one to do actual effective oversight of the Intelligence Community.\u201dODNI\u2019s supporters also point to the recent weaponization of the FBI, for example, against Trump and his allies under President Joe Biden, arguing that the bureau still is staffed with agents that were part of this weaponization and that oversight is still needed.\u00a0\u201cThe DNI manages the National Intelligence Program budget, giving the ODNI real fiscal leverage over FBI Counterintelligence operations,\u201d a second former intelligence official said. \u201cGiven that the FBI Counterintelligence Division has been completely rogue since Trump came down the escalator, and because Congress has proven itself incapable of conducting any real oversight of the FBI and CIA, the Trump Administration should be cautious when liquidating a component of the USG with true oversight ability.\u201d\u00a0Congress has oversight over the FBI and the CIA, but at the end of the day, the lawmakers are only briefed on what the agencies choose to tell them. In some cases, the senior intelligence official said, Congress will never know \u201cunless shit goes so badly that they can\u2019t hide it.\u201dThe DNI position was created after 9\/11. Before, the CIA director effectively ran the entire intelligence community in addition to his own agency.Cotton outright made the case that things may have been better off then on the Senate floor this week:\u00a0\u201cUnfortunately,\u201d he said, \u201cI think we can now assess a couple decades on, that it is something of a failed experiment itself.\u201d\u00a0The Arkansas lawmaker, who said he wants ODNI to be downsized and streamlined, noted that ODNI does serve some functions that could possibly be \u201cperformed elsewhere.\u201d He shared that he spoke with Pulte this week about sending officers back to their home agencies and reducing ODNI to its original size, but he denied reporting that \u201cmass firings\u201d had begun.\u00a0\u201cIf Director Pulte can, in fact, take these steps in the right direction, I think that can benefit Jay Clayton once he is confirmed,\u201d Cotton shared. \u201cMr. Clayton will be able to inherit an organization that has already been downsized, and he can hit the ground running on day one, to continue that work, and to ensure that the DNI is promoting our intelligence communities\u2019 important work \u2014 not hindering it.\u201d\u00a0Hardliners like Steve Bannon view Cotton\u2019s stance as an effort to promote the CIA.\u00a0\u201cWhen you see Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham talking about this, it\u2019s not to go after the Deep State,\u201d argued Bannon on his show. \u201cIt\u2019s to downsize DNI from its administrative or supervisory function over the intelligence community to what I call \u2018CIA supremacism.'\u201dBut other members of the intelligence community view ODNI as a massive hindrance to the work that they are trying to accomplish.\u00a0One senior government official questioned the efficacy of the layered bureaucracy of ODNI and exactly what the agency accomplishes, noting, \u201cThey are not the action arm.\u201d\u00a0\u201cThe action arm is the FBI. Gonna arrest a spy? The FBI does that. The information arm is the CIA and the NSA,\u201d the official noted. \u201c[ODNI] don\u2019t produce any intelligence either.\u201dPulte is only serving as acting DNI\u00a0 \u2014 the president chose Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as his nominee for permanent Director of National Intelligence.Clayton has received strong support from numerous Republican senators, including Cotton and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, but Trump abruptly told Clayton not to attend his confirmation hearings earlier this month after lawmakers allowed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to lapse.Speaking from Switzerland during his trip to the G7, the president said he\u2019ll leave Pulte as acting DNI \u201cas long as it takes to get everybody else approved.\u201d He noted that he is against FISA if it does not come with the SAVE America Act attached to it.\u201cLook, he\u2019s a very legitimate guy,\u201d the president said of Pulte. \u201cHe\u2019s very smart. He\u2019s a brilliant guy.\u201d\u201cWhy are they afraid of this guy?\u201d he added. \u201cI mean, they\u2019re so afraid of him, they\u2019ll do anything not to have Pulte go in there. He\u2019s a very capable guy, and they\u2019re worried about that.\u201dPulte is notoriously close to the president, and he certainly has the president\u2019s confidence for now. In the meantime, it appears that he will continue to downsize DNI. A senate advisor familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire of the cuts: \u201cI think this is the start, not the end.\u201d","og_url":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654","og_site_name":"Blue Route Journal","article_published_time":"2026-06-26T13:09:01+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/#\/schema\/person\/19da116f8d79cf8987781569801c6b7c"},"headline":"Inside The Trump And Pulte Purge Fueling An Intel Civil War","datePublished":"2026-06-26T13:09:01+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654"},"wordCount":1368,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/80d48f38f827f9dc448c7fe18f7bd07e.avif","articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654","url":"https:\/\/blueroutejournal.com\/?p=654","name":"Inside The Trump And Pulte Purge Fueling An Intel Civil War - 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