What did Donald Trump do today?

He put his political hatchet man in charge of the country's intelligence agencies.

Today, Trump named Bill Pulte as his acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte, who will also continue in his role as head of the Federal Housing Authority, is best known in national circles for his role in ginning up spurious criminal investigations against at Trump's political enemies. (Specifically in Michigan real estate circles, he's known for being the defendant in a class action lawsuit for shoddy construction in the homes built by the company he inherited.)

In simplest terms, Pulte made a list of Trump's enemies, then used his position to go looking through the details of private financial transactions for pretexts to have criminal charges brought against them.

Among Pulte's targets for Trump's revenge were Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), NY state Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. Schiff and Swalwell are outspoken critics, and James successfully prosecuted Trump's company for hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud. Cook simply refused to resign from the Federal Reserve Board so that Trump could appoint someone who would give him the massive interest rate cut he wants and would personally make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from.

None of Pulte's criminal investigations or referrals went anywhere, and at least one was a spectacular failure by legal standards: DOJ prosecutors failed three times in a row to obtain a valid grand jury indictment of James. (Indictments at the federal level are practically a formality; failing three times in a single case may be a record.) 

In large part, Pulte's scheme failed because the supposed "wrongdoing" he accused them of—mostly, claiming different houses as primary residences on different mortgage applications—isn't illegal in the first place, unless it's part of a larger fraud scheme (like the one Trump himself was convicted of in New York state court). In the aftermath, at least three Trump cabinet officials, were revealed to have made similar mortgage claims, and Pulte's multi-millionaire father and stepmother were found to have both claimed homestead tax credits on two properties, which is likely illegal. (Pulte did not bring charges against any of them.)

When federal agents at the FNMA, which Pulte chairs, began investigating whether Pulte had improperly used his influence to target Trump's political enemies, Trump fired them.  

In his new role as DNI, Pulte would have access to all of the most sensitive information known to the United States government. That makes the fact that Pulte does not even have a security clearance now an enormous problem. There is also a legal problem with Pulte's appointment: federal law requires that a DNI have "extensive" experience in national security. Pulte, who at 38 has spent his entire career before 2025 as the heir to a real estate fortune, has none at all.

There was bipartisan disgust at the announcement today. Republican Sen. John Thune said the pick would "weaponize" the national intelligence system against Trump's enemies. The conservative editorial board of the Washington Post marveled that Trump had "managed to find someone less qualified than Tulsi Gabbard to replace her as interim director of national intelligence," and said that Pulte was a "sycophant" whose real function would be to damage the nation's intelligence agencies from within. (Trump has had a vendetta against the American intelligence community from the start, in part because they exposed his campaign's collusion with the Russian government to subvert elections on his behalf.) GOP Senator Bill Cassidy simply called Pulte incompetent.

Trump has been claiming since he took office that he, personally, is the real victim of the "weaponization" of government. 

Why does this matter?

• Using the law to punish enemies for political crimes is basically the core of authoritarianism. 

• The person in charge of national intelligence should know the first thing about intelligence, or at least have held a job they didn't inherit from their grandfather.

• Playing the victim is a classic abuser strategy.