Bill Pulte, Senate-confirmed Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Chairman of Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac, has been appointed by President Trump as Acting Director of National Intelligence. This is stupid. Pulte has no experience in intelligence, will not give up his other roles, and is widely-seen as a Trump loyalist and/or hatchet man. Not surprisingly, this is going over like a lead zeppelin among Democrats in the Senate, and has gotten a cool reception from Senate Republicans. Unfortunately, the law that authorizes Trump to install Pulte—the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA)—has been consistently abused by presidents of both parties. The underlying goal of the law—to allow presidents to temporarily get suitable officials into Senate-confirmed positions with vacancies while new nominees are being considered in the Senate—is unquestionably sound. But the structure of the law creates a ton of loopholes. Consider just five major ones: Any Senate-confirmed appointee in the…
No comments yet. Log in to reply on the Fediverse. Comments will appear here.