Democrats warn that Pulte could try to help Trump steal midterm elections
Two Democratic senators said Tuesday that they fear President Donald Trump’s new acting intelligence chief, Bill Pulte, could be used to interfere in this fall’s midterm elections — or to cast the results as illegitimate if Republicans lose the House or Senate.
Pulte, a Trump loyalist who runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was named acting director of national intelligence on Tuesday. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the appointment sharpened his worry that Trump and his allies will try to steal or subvert the midterm elections.
Pulte’s predecessor in the role, Tulsi Gabbard, backed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Gabbard took part in an FBI raid that seized 2020 voting records in Fulton County, Georgia, and supported federal 2020 election fraud investigations in multiple states.
“What I’ve been concerned about for ages is: Will the Trump administration or people inside it try to manipulate our elections this fall?” Warner told MS NOW. “We already saw that with the prior DNI, in terms of Tulsi Gabbard, grabbing these ballot boxes in Fulton County. If I was concerned about Tulsi Gabbard, Bill Pulte raises those concerns tenfold.”
Democrats and some election experts have warned that Trump administration officials could, for instance, claim to have intelligence showing that a foreign power had compromised voting machines in a heavily Democratic area, then use it as a pretext to try to halt voting on Election Day.
Warner said he feared Pulte would use “fabricated” intelligence to justify such a move. In his role as chief of the FHFA, Pulte and his allies used housing records to aid criminal investigations of Trump’s political rivals. Democrats accused Pulte of improperly using government information to launch the investigations, none of which has so far resulted in a conviction.
“If he’s been able to manipulate and weaponize mortgage information, think about if you got the keys to all of the intelligence agencies,” Warner said. “I’m worried about his willingness to take a fabricated piece of intelligence, or a raw piece of intelligence that has not been verified, and use it as an excuse to interfere in the elections.”
A former U.S. intelligence official also expressed concern, saying that Pulte may highlight intelligence information that bolsters claims by Trump.
“He will minimize whole-of-government efforts to protect the sanctity of voting from foreign adversaries,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation from Trump. “And maximize intelligence hinting at irregularities — all to tip the scales or question results — to Trump’s favor.”
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David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
