The intelligence community spent years lying to the American people about Russia, Ukraine, and a stolen election.
Now Trump's man is cleaning house – and he just finished another sweep.
What Bill Pulte just announced Sunday night tells you exactly how serious Trump is about finishing the job.
From 2,000 Bureaucrats to a Leaner Fighting Force
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence started Trump's second term with roughly 2,000 employees.
That number tells you everything you need to know about what happened to this agency over the past twenty years.
Congress created ODNI in 2004 after 9/11 – a small coordinating body to make sure America's spy agencies talked to each other.
It was never meant to become a massive bureaucracy with a $700 million annual budget.
Democrats and their deep state allies had other ideas.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2081543022659953009?s=20
Tulsi Gabbard took a sledgehammer to the bloat first.
During her 16 months as DNI, Gabbard fired 500 people, slashed the budget by over $700 million annually, and launched the "ODNI 2.0" restructuring – the largest overhaul of the agency since its founding.
She called out exactly what it had become: a bureaucracy "rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence."
When Gabbard stepped down in June to care for her husband, Trump didn't miss a beat.
He installed Bill Pulte – who also runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency – and told him to keep going.
Trump Gave Pulte One Directive and He Executed It Four Times in Five Weeks
Pulte took over June 19th.
Four rounds of firings followed – the last one announced Sunday night.
By July 10th alone, he had already completed a third round, calling it a reduction of "redundant, or non-critical, personnel."
"Since becoming Acting Director of National Intelligence, our team has been smartly, and carefully, reducing the size of ODNI, re-focusing ODNI on national security, the law, and the statute," he wrote Sunday.
By the time Gabbard left in mid-June, the agency had already shrunk from roughly 2,000 to about 1,300 employees.
Pulte's four rounds have continued cutting from there – congressional aides now say ODNI sits at just over half its original size.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal exactly what he was looking for: "I'd like to see it smaller. I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn't be there" – pointing directly at Obama and Biden administration carryovers.
The Deep State Wasn't Just Costing Money
The National Intelligence Council – the elite analytic body responsible for producing assessments that brief the president on Russia, China, and elections – has been hit hard.
About 20 council personnel have been removed or departed, including senior analysts who covered Russia, China, and Europe.
The top official overseeing the council was placed on administrative leave.
This is not bureaucratic pruning.
This is targeted removal of the exact people who produced the politicized intelligence assessments that were used to lie to America for a decade.
The Foreign Malign Influence Center – created under Biden in 2022, supposedly to combat foreign threats – was gutted because it was used to suppress free speech and censor political opposition.
Senator Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, has long pushed to cap ODNI's full-time employees at 650, arguing the agency grew far beyond what Congress ever intended.
"Congress created the ODNI to be a lean organization that used small staffs to coordinate across the Intelligence Community," Cotton said.
What Pulte Released While He Was Firing People
The layoffs weren't even the biggest thing Pulte did Sunday.
https://twitter.com/BoLoudon/status/2081544302128185356?s=20
The same day he announced the fourth round of firings, he released a trove of declassified documents on foreign threats to the 2020 election.
Among them: a CIA note detailing that Venezuelan government officials developed sustained interest and likely some capability in manipulating electronic voting systems – including through Smartmatic technology.
These documents existed inside ODNI the entire time.
The same bureaucracy that was supposed to protect America was sitting on intelligence about election security threats while 2,000 employees collected paychecks and said nothing.
Jay Clayton – Trump's nominee to permanently lead ODNI – is expected to inherit an organization that is finally the size it was always supposed to be.
Four rounds of layoffs in five weeks.
That's what accountability looks like.
Sources:
- Alex Nitzberg, "Acting Director of National Intelligence Announces 4th Wave of Layoffs," Fox News, July 27, 2026.
- "Pulte: Fourth Round of ODNI Layoffs Complete," One America News Network, July 27, 2026.
- "More 'Deep State' Firings: Acting DNI Continues to Purge Intel Community," RedState, July 27, 2026.
- "Bill Pulte Completes 4th Round of Layoffs at ODNI," The Hill, July 27, 2026.
- "US Intelligence Agency Quietly Cut About 200 Jobs Since June 1," Daily Herald, July 23, 2026.
- "Gabbard to Slash Intel Office Staff by 40% in $700M Budget Cut," NewsNation, August 2025.
- Tom Cotton, Senate Intelligence Committee Statement on ODNI Restructuring, CBS News, August 2025.