Bill Pulte, the Unlawful Intelligence Director?

Bill Pulte has spent his first days as the acting director of national intelligence firing senior personnel. But according to the law, he’s not even eligible for the job he occupies.On this matter, the act of Congress that created the position he now occupies seems unambiguous: “The Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence shall act for, and exercise the powers of” the DNI when that position is vacant, as it is now. Not “may” serve. Shall. The current principal deputy is Aaron Lukas, a career intelligence officer who is not only available to serve but has extensive national-security experience, which is another thing that the law requires. Pulte, an outspoken Trump loyalist who is also the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has none. We’ll come to Lukas in a moment. But it’s worth dwelling on this legal point because Pulte is expected to enact significant changes to the office that he is temporarily running, and it’s not clear he has the authority to do so. Career intelligence officers, as well as some of the most senior political appointees at the ODNI, expect they may lose their jobs this week or next, current and former officials told us. A handful have already been dismissed, including William Ruger, one of the most senior officials, who was previously the president of a libertarian think tank. One U.S. official said that ODNI officials are drawing up their list of budget priorities, expecting that Pulte will use them to help him decide who stays and who can go. A few dozen people have received notices to return to their home agencies, this official added.Career government employees, who enjoy civil-service protections, might have a pathway to challenge their dismissal. “You can’t be lawfully fired by someone who has no authority to fire you, and since Mr. Pulte was illegally appointed, he does not have that power,” Zachary West, a former Justice Department official and now counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan research and advocacy