Trump urges Pulte to fire intelligence community employees

U.S. President Donald Trump told the Wall ⁠Street Journal ⁠on Friday he wants acting director ⁠of national intelligence Bill Pulte to begin the process of firing a large number of employees ⁠as ⁠part of a shake-up of the U.S. intelligence community.

Trump said he had privately told Bill Pulte, a former housing official with no previous intelligence experience, that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is “unnecessary and or too big.”

“I’d like to see it smaller. I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn’t be there,” Trump told the WSJ. Asked if he was calling on Pulte to fire people, Trump said he wants him to “start the process.”

Democrats have condemned Trump’s naming of Pulte on Tuesday to oversee the 18 US intelligence agencies, pointing to the loyalist’s history of targeting the president’s enemies while chief of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.