Top Senate Republicans Dodge On Bill Pulte’s Lack of Qualifications To Be DNI: ‘No Observations on the Matter’

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Top Senate Republicans dodged on Tuesday when asked about President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence, Bill Pulte.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said when asked about Pulte, “If they nominate him to take the position permanently, he’ll have to go through a confirmation process and hearings and everything else, so we’ll see.”

When asked more specifically about Pulte potentially weaponizing his position, Thune said, “We don’t need a weaponized DNI; we need professionals there.”

Pulte is the controversial head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte, who has no military or intelligence history, has been condemned by voices on both sides of the aisle, many of whom have noted accusations he’s already weaponized his current role to target political enemies of the president over mortgage fraud.

He added, “Again, I just heard about it. I’ll try and get more information about the current state of their thinking about that position. If he’s somebody they want in that position permanently, he’s got a — as you all know — a lengthy road ahead of him.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) took a more obvious dodge after Thune deferred to him, as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to comment on the matter.

“We have four more weeks with Director Gabbard as the DNI and I look forward to implementing last year’s intelligence authorization act with her to implement wide-ranging reforms that will shrink the DNI and take it back to its original intent to provide a mere coordinator process role for the intelligence community,” Cotton said.

Asked then about Pulte and his “experience,” Cotton noted, “I have no observations on the matter.”

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

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