Episode 5463: Spearheading The Bill Pulte Nomination

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Bannon`s War Room 55 min 6 speakers 5 chapters transcribed 2 months ago

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Who is Bill Pulte and why was he named acting Director of National Intelligence?

Unknown 0:00

Bill Pulte is a man on a mission. Just days into the job, the New York Times reports the new acting director of national intelligence, O.D. and Y., could announce layoffs as early as today. The top Democrats on House and Senate intel committees have sent him a letter warning him against those cuts. Aside, though, from cutting jobs at O.D. and I, Pulte may be working on another task for President Donald Trump. Well, let's talk about what legal recourse the employees have, because we've seen this movie before. Many of the employees of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence allegedly or theoretically have civil service protections, and they could fight to get their jobs back. There are courts in this country that are allowing people to go forward with those kinds of lawsuits.

Unknown 0:42

Maureen Comey, former FBI Director Jim Comey's daughter, has a lawsuit like that that's currently ongoing here in Manhattan. But in other areas of the country, fired members of the civil service have not been allowed access to federal courts to do that. They've been told they have to direct their complaints to the Merit Systems Protection Board. That's a sort of Byzantine administrative process that takes a very long time to get through. And that's by design. The reason that they are going ahead and firing some of these people is because they know that recourse, if any, is going to be a long time in coming. They say we're concerned that your record as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency demonstrates a willingness to misuse your position, including your access to sensitive information to pursue President Trump's perceived political enemies and further his retributive political agenda.

Unknown 1:29

On that note, there's Reuters reporting. that White House officials delayed, Leanne, an ODNI report regarding the vulnerabilities on voting machines. Three sources telling them that that report did not go far enough on the big lie on Donald Trump's attempt to say that the election was stolen. It was not. Pulte is not somebody that has a lot of popularity, broadly speaking, within Congress. Does a... How broad, though, is the concern about what he might do with elections? Democrats are clearly worried about it. Are Republicans?

What legal protections and recourse do fired ODNI employees have against proposed layoffs?

Leanne Caldwell 2:06

So, yeah, Democrats have obviously worried about many things regarding this election. I haven't heard a lot of complaints from Republicans who are concerned about what he might do regarding the election. But separately and but also related to Bill Pulte is FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which. has been expired for almost two weeks now. And the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate were moving extremely expeditiously last week to confirm the new head of DNI, Jay Clayton, So that Bill Pulte would never be in this position as acting. It was going to be a monumental feat and on track for him to be basically have a hearing and confirmed in a matter of days. But Donald Trump blew all of that up.

Leanne Caldwell 3:07

And what Republicans on Capitol Hill think is the reason he did that is just because he wants Bill Pulte in there so bad to do his bidding, whatever that is, whether it's regarding this report, whether it's regarding decimating ODNI. Perhaps there's other things on the agenda, too. So Republicans and Democrats both were going to bypass the president and make sure that Bill Pulte wasn't installed, even in an acting capacity. And Donald Trump figured out a way to ensure that Jay Clayton didn't show up for his confirmation hearing, delayed that confirmation process. And here we are. So there are definitely Republican and Democratic concerns much more broadly about what is happening over there.

Unknown 4:00

This coincides almost to the day with the 10-year anniversary of Brexit. Yeah. Yeah, it does. And while Brexit doesn't explain the entirety of Keir Starmer's departure, it really is kind of the basis for helping you understand what has gone wrong in this country over a decade, according to people who live here who have become so frustrated with politicians. They were frustrated with conservative Tory politicians who were in power for 14 years.