Pulte says he completed fourth round of layoffs as acting DNI

Administration Pulte says he completed fourth round of layoffs as acting DNI Comments: by Max Rego - 07/26/26 10:51 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Max Rego - 07/26/26 10:51 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Bill Pulte said Sunday his office completed a fourth round of layoffs since he took over on June 19.

“Since becoming Acting Director of National Intelligence, our team has been smartly, and carefully, reducing the size of [the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI)], re-focusing ODNI on national security, the law, and the statute,” Pulte wrote the on social platform X.

“As of this evening, we just finished a 4th round of thoughtful, measured layoffs. Thank you!”

Within days of taking over for former DNI Tulsi Gabbard, Pulte laid off troves of staffers within the ODNI. Gabbard claimed she had fired 500 people, or around 30 percent of the agency’s workforce, during her roughly 16-month tenure.

Even before Pulte took over for Gabbard, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed reservations over his lack of intel experience and unsuccessful pushes for federal prosecutors to seek criminal indictments of President Trump’s perceived enemies over allegations of mortgage fraud.

Earlier this week, the Senate Intelligence Committee advanced the nomination of Jay Clayton, whom Trump nominated to serve as full-time DNI. All Democrats voted against moving Clayton’s nomination along to the full Senate floor, after the nominee refused to say whether former President Biden won the 2020 election over Trump during his confirmation hearing.

Also on Sunday, Pulte released a slew of documents related to the intelligence community’s investigations into foreign threats to the 2020 election — many of which Trump recently declassified.

Included in the documents is a CIA note from June detailing “persistent concerns” about the national security threats posed by the Venezuelan government’s ability to manipulate electronic voting systems.

The note stated U.S. intelligence officials “established that Venezuelan government officials developed sustained interest and likely some capability in manipulating electronic voting systems, including Smartmatic technology, to influence electoral outcomes” in the South American country.

“However, while the intelligence validated significant concerns about foreign-linked voting technology vendors, it did not definitively confirm that large-scale electronic fraud was successfully executed in specific Venezuelan elections,” the note added.

Earlier this month, Trump accused the Chinese government of securing access to hundreds of millions of U.S. voter registration files during the 2020 campaign. But earlier this week, Trump downplayed China’s actions as part of a two-way battle between the world’s largest economies.

“They do things and we do things to them. I’ll be honest, we do things to them, too. It’s not a one-way street. But we’ll be talking to them,” the president said in the Oval Office alongside Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian also said Trump “entirely fabricated” his allegations against Beijing.

“The relevant allegations by the U.S. are entirely fabricated and aimed at vilifying China,” Jian said last week. “We have no interest in interfering in US elections and have never done so.”

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