Acting director of national intelligence says leadership transition will begin Monday after Trump talks
By Alejandra Jaramillo, CNN
(CNN) — Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte said Saturday that the leadership transition at the office will begin Monday, reversing reports of earlier plans for him to remain in the role alongside his successor, Jay Clayton, for a transition period.
“After speaking with the President Trump and Jay Clayton, we have decided the DNI transition will take place this coming Monday,” Pulte wrote on X, adding, “I am eternally grateful to President Trump for the opportunity to serve as Director of National Intelligence, while he completed historic declassifications and we right sized the ODNI.”
Pulte also praised Clayton, writing, “I have no doubt that Jay will do a tremendous job. I have offered Jay my complete and total support as he transitions to take over this incredible agency!”
CNN reported earlier this week that Pulte had been expected to remain at the office for at least two weeks after Clayton was sworn in, according to a source familiar with the plans.
Multiple sources told CNN that Pulte had personally urged Trump to allow him to stay on longer, arguing that he had not yet completed his work leading the intelligence agency.
Clayton, who was confirmed by the Senate earlier this week, is expected to be sworn in next week, a source told CNN.
Clayton steps into his new job inheriting a diminished office whose authortity and relevance are at a historic low point. Pulte, a combative and controversial housing executive with no prior national security experience, has made sharp staffing cuts to the intelligence community and played a role in declassifying certain documents related to Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020.
Pulte traveled with the president aboard Air Force One on Friday from Camp David to Bedminster, New Jersey, where the president is spending the weekend.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who recommended Clayton for the job and helped shape Pulte’s time in office, was seen chatting with the president before both departed Camp David.
A central objective of Pulte’s short-term tenure was declassifying sensitive materials regarding past election and amplify Trump’s long-standing false claims of voter fraud.
Pulte did accelerate sharp staffing cuts that Trump ordered, and that critics argued would hamstring the intelligence community, but there is broad bipartisan agreement that the office had become too large. Some Republican Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, who had been concerned initially over Pulte’s appointment and lack of experience, later said they were pleased with the work he had done to cut some of that bloat.
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CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis, Kristen Holmes, Ellis Kim and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.
