Bill Pulte speaks with reporters at the White House on Sept. 2, 2025.Mark Schiefelbein/AP
President Donald Trump’s announcement Tuesday that Bill Pulte will serve as acting Director of National Intelligence—taking over the post from the embattled Tulsi Gabbard—makes a weird kind of sense.
Pulte, who currently serves as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has no experience that prepares him to oversee the 18 intelligence agencies that the DNI is supposed to manage. But he has used his traditionally low-profile job overseeing the home mortgage industry to help launch dubious criminal probes relating to supposed mortgage fraud by Trump critics and foes. Working with Ed Martin, the former head of the Trump DOJ’s “weaponization” task force, Pulte spurred investigations of Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, as well as an ill-fated indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Gabbard, who left the DNI job last month, was largely sidelined from intelligence matter as Trump launched attacks against Venezuela and Iran. But she, too, used the role to pursue Trump’s political grievances, declassifying and misrepresenting documents to make the wild claim that former President Barack Obama led a “treasonous conspiracy” against Trump after the 2016 election and to prompt a questionable criminal investigation of national security officials who served during the Obama administration. She also seized voting machines in Puerto Rico and bizarrely showed up in person in Fulton County, Georgia, to watch FBI agents seize 2020 ballots. Pulte may not know anything about overseeing the CIA, but he seems well equipped to carry on the mission of using the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to target Trump’s critics. That’s clearly the job the president has in mind.
“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. The president said Pulte will also continue running FHFA.
Pulte’s experience at the FHFA, and in prior work, has raised serious questions about his own conduct. The Government Accountability Office—an investigative arm of Congress—is probing whether Pulte misused federal resources to launch politicized attacks. And even as he has pursued Trump critics for what in many cases appear to be paperwork mistakes, Pulte has substantial baggage of his own.
Pulte, a third-generation heir to real estate fortune, in 2023 gave $65,000 through a foundation he controlled to a supposed charity to support the poor, called One World Love. We found no indication a nonprofit with that name exists. Instead the funds appear to have gone to a Wyoming LLC tied to the Binnall Law Group—which represented Trump in various matters, including his effort to avoid paying damages after the January 6 attack. Pulte and Binnall have not responded to questions about the transaction.
“These facts raise serious concerns that Team Pulte Inc. may have illegally funneled cash out of a charity to support President Trump,” Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma.) wrote in a letter last month questioning Pulte about the transaction.
In a separate 2021 transaction, Pulte and his wife, Diana, appear to have used an LLC they controlled in Delaware to funnel a $500,000 contribution to a pro-Trump PAC. An FEC investigation into the gift ended last year without faulting Pulte. A spokesman told Mother Jones Pulte “was 100 percent compliant” and “anything else is Fake News, an attempt to smear Director Pulte.”
Pulte has also drawn notice for promoting a memecoin created by a social media influencer who the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission later accused of defrauding investors in the coin of at least $114 million through a pump-and-dump scheme. That case is scheduled to go to trial in Texas next year.
Last year, Mother Jones also reported that Pulte, even as he pushed for criminal investigations based on apparent paperwork errors, had failed to file a required SEC disclosure form. Pulte filed the form the day after our report.
