In case you missed it, new reporting from the HuffPost dug into the record of Bill Pulte, the housing executive with zero national security background whom Trump installed as acting Director of National Intelligence, and found troubling personnel hires in his other role as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Key findings from the HuffPost:
- Pulte has fired dozens of career and political intelligence staffers since Trump named him acting DNI on June 19, despite having no intelligence or national security experience of his own.
- At FHFA, Pulte brought on Michigan restaurant owner and prominent Trump donor Mark Zarkin as a consultant to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year, according to Reuters. Zarkin was convicted in 2000 of a felony sex crime and spent years on Michigan’s sex offender registry before a judge later overturned the conviction.
- Zarkin is also named in a whistleblower lawsuit alleging he and a local police chief schemed to bribe Trump into pardoning a New York associate convicted of banking fraud, including a trip to Mar-a-Lago to meet with wealthy contacts.
- Zarkin reportedly helped Pulte stage a misleading film shoot at Fannie Mae offices in March 2025 meant to suggest employees weren’t showing up to work, footage that later aired on Fox News.
- FHFA disputes the Reuters reporting, claiming a different person with the same name was the actual consultant, but has not explained why it never sought a correction in the eight months since the story ran, and Reuters says it stands by its reporting.
- Pulte also hired Aaron Kofsky at FHFA just months after Kofsky was fired from Sen. JD Vance’s office when WIRED revealed years of pseudonymous Reddit posts detailing his drug use and advice on smuggling drugs through TSA checkpoints.
- Even Republican senators have raised doubts about Pulte’s fitness for the intelligence role, with Sen. James Lankford telling reporters last month that Pulte is “not qualified for the long-term position.”
Read the full story from HuffPost here.
Published: Jul 9, 2026