WASHINGTON, June 3 (Reuters) – Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday he had never heard the name of Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s pick to be acting director of national intelligence, during his years of experience with the U.S. intelligence community.
U.S. Representative Bill Keating, a Democrat from Massachusetts, cited Rubio’s expertise in intelligence matters from his years on the Senate Intelligence Committee and his current roles as top U.S. diplomat and Trump’s national security adviser.
“Have you ever specifically, in the context of the intelligence community, heard the name Bill Pulte?” Keating asked at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.
“In the context of intelligence?” Rubio repeated. “No.”
“Never heard his name?” Keating interrupted. “Thank you for answering that. Never even heard his name, given all your years of experience and your position now. Never heard the name.”
Trump on Tuesday appointed federal housing regulator Pulte, elevating a political loyalist with no national security experience to lead the sprawling U.S. intelligence community at a time of war and global tensions.
Democrats and at least one Republican blasted Pulte as unqualified to oversee U.S. intelligence services.
“For the record,” Keating continued, “Bill Pulte is a person Donald Trump has chosen for the acting director of national intelligence with no experience in the intelligence field, whose misuse, widely reported, of confidential information led to the prosecution of the president’s political enemies, is now the person in charge of the nation’s most closely guarded intelligence, when he couldn’t even conduct himself appropriately as the federal housing finance director.”
Pulte, 38, has used his position as head of a low-profile mortgage regulatory agency to push for investigations of several of Trump’s perceived enemies for alleged mortgage fraud.
Trump praised Pulte in his Truth Social post announcing his appointment as having “deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America.”
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Simon Lewis, Doina Chiacu; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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