Acting DNI Pulte ordered ODNI offices to rank personnel for mass firings, targeting career intelligence professionals

On June 22, 2026, acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte directed ODNI offices to submit ranked lists of their personnel for cuts, initiating what sources described as an expected mass purge of career intelligence professionals. The National Counterterrorism Center and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center — the two ODNI subordinate centers responsible for coordinating counterterrorism across agencies and protecting against foreign espionage — were identified as facing the heaviest cuts. Pulte, the former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency with no national-security background, assumed the acting DNI role on June 19 after Tulsi Gabbard's departure, and began the firings within days.

The removals proceed under a June 5, 2026, directive from President Trump, who told the Wall Street Journal he had instructed Pulte to "start the process" of firing intelligence community personnel, framing the targets as career officials who served under the Biden and Obama administrations and whom he characterized as "deep state" loyalists. Bipartisan members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — including ranking members Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes — wrote to Pulte warning that large-scale cuts risk exposing sensitive sources and methods, and that decisions of that magnitude were "more appropriately left to a Senate-confirmed Director." Trump had indicated he does not intend to formally nominate Pulte, keeping him in an acting capacity specifically because it left him "less shackled" by Senate oversight.