The process for confirming a Director of National Intelligence is not complicated. The president nominates someone. The Senate committee schedules hearings. The nominee shows up and answers questions. The committee votes. The full Senate votes. This process exists because the DNI oversees 17 intelligence agencies and approximately 100,000 people, and the framers believed that someone running an operation of that scale should face some public scrutiny before being given the keys.
Trump abruptly ended the process this week. The Washington Examiner reports the Senate has been left in “dysfunction,” with Republican senators confused about what the president wants and committee chairs reportedly unclear on the next step. No replacement nominee has been named. No timeline has been offered. The announcement of the process’s end was, apparently, the announcement.
Bill Pulte is still in the role. Pulte is the housing agency director who was made acting DNI without confirmation, without a Senate hearing, and without publicly confirmed security clearance. He is running the CIA and NSA during the first 60 days of a nuclear ceasefire with Iran that was signed at Versailles last night. He is simultaneously chairing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He is, by every available public account, a man who recommended a mortgage fraud investigation against a Federal Reserve governor who then got fired, which is not normally listed as an intelligence qualification but appears to have functioned as one in this case.
The Republican senators who would happily confirm a qualified nominee cannot confirm anyone because there is no nominee. The committee chairs who were moving toward a process are now holding a process that has been publicly canceled. The intelligence oversight structure exists on paper. The paper is currently empty.
The United States just signed a nuclear framework with Iran. The 60-day clock is running. The person in charge of verifying compliance leads the spy agencies on an acting basis, without a clearance on file, having never been confirmed.
When the Senate cannot find out what the president wants to do with the country’s intelligence apparatus by asking the president’s own party, who is running it?
Sources
Washington Examiner: Trump sends Senate GOP reeling with intelligence chief chaos
Washington Examiner: What led up to Tulsi Gabbard’s departure from ODNI
