Trump uses acting officials to sidestep Senate hurdles

Trump acting – President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily put Bill Pulte—a housing official—at the helm of the U.S. intelligence community has triggered sharp criticism. Reform advocates say Pulte lacks national security expertise and did not have a security clearance

When President Donald Trump tapped Bill Pulte, a housing official, to temporarily oversee the American intelligence community, it landed oddly—especially for people who believe the job requires deep national security experience.

Pulte is set to start next week in an “acting” role, and the president has been explicit that it won’t be permanent. In the Oval Office on June 4, Trump said, “It’s an acting position, it’s not a permanent.”

But critics argue the temporary posture doesn’t solve the core problem. They point to what Pulte was hired to do. and what he brought—or didn’t bring—to the role at the moment it was announced. Government reform advocates say Pulte lacks national security expertise and did not have a security clearance when the appointment was made.

The move also sets up a political flashpoint for lawmakers. Democrats, the story notes, could let a key foreign surveillance law lapse as a protest. On Capitol Hill, Republicans are described as scrambling.

That same feeling of leaders being swapped out before replacements are ready has echoed across other parts of government in Trump’s second term. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are referenced as having had qualified leaders pushed out without permanent replacements yet in place. The role of surgeon general, the piece adds, has also not been permanently filled during Trump’s second term.

At the heart of the criticism is a question about how quickly the Senate can move—and how often Trump chooses to work around it. Trump’s power to push nominees for key roles through the Senate is described as waning ahead of November’s election. where low approval ratings could make it harder for Republicans to protect their candidates.

The pattern being traced is that Trump is relying more and more on “acting” officials across multiple agencies—at least for as long as the law allows—while also continuing to test the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. The story describes this as a way to give certain close aides broad responsibility over multiple agencies.

The article places Pulte in a larger retread of Trump’s first administration. It points to Secretary of State Marco Rubio serving as acting archivist. and it notes the Social Security Administration administrator doing double duty in an invented position of CEO of the IRS. The director position at the tax collection agency. the text says. can no longer legally be filled on a temporary basis.

Pulte’s track record, as the story frames it, is not tied to housing or intelligence experience. Instead, it describes a throughline: his use of his federal job to target Trump’s political enemies.

Trump, for his part, dismissed any long-term need for Pulte in the intelligence role. The piece says Trump expects that with Pulte in charge, “He may find out some things about the rigged elections.”

Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, is quoted describing the approach as harmful. “It’s a layer cake of mismanagement,” Stier said.

Stier went further, arguing the consequences fall on the public. “It is a recipe for waste, corruption, incompetence, and bad outcome for the American people,” he said.

The argument becomes sharper when the story connects Pulte’s appointment to how the federal vacancy law works—because the law isn’t just a technical rule. It is built to keep the Senate involved in filling top posts.

The law that set up the DNI role. the story explains. requires that anyone nominated “shall have extensive national security expertise.” When Pulte was announced for the acting director of national intelligence role. the article says he did not have a security clearance and has also not been nominated for the permanent role.

Yet it adds another part of the DNI framework: if a vacancy occurs. the principal deputy director of national intelligence “shall act for” the DNI during a vacancy. The article identifies the principal deputy director of national intelligence as Aaron Lukas. describing him as an experienced former CIA officer.

At the same time, the Federal Vacancies Act of 1998 is described as the other law that matters here. The article says it was passed on a bipartisan basis to limit President Bill Clinton’s ability to avoid seeking lawmakers’ approval for appointments requiring Senate approval—jobs often referred to by the shorthand PAS.

The Vacancies Act lays out who can serve as acting officials and for how long. It says PAS roles can only be filled by their top deputies, other top officials in their agency, or another Senate-confirmed official. Pulte is identified as a Senate-confirmed official.

Then come the time limits: an acting official can serve for 210 days after a vacancy occurs. If the president nominates a permanent replacement, the 210-day clock stops during the nomination process. The article says the president can get another 210-day period for an acting official if the first nomination fails or is withdrawn—but only once. “But they don’t get a third,” the story states.

The piece also says presidents of both parties have routinely violated the law, citing the Government Accountability Office.

From there, the article widens the lens. It describes how Trump’s approach has stacked unrelated responsibilities onto trusted aides. It points to Jamieson Greer. who the story says was already busy with Trump’s trade war when he was also tasked to lead the Office of Government Ethics and the Office of Special Counsel. Those roles, the article notes, are meant to guard against conflicts of interest and to help whistleblowers.

In Trump’s second term. the story says Trump doesn’t seem to have much use for either office because neither has a permanent leader. It then adds several other examples: the Federal Election Commission “doesn’t currently have enough commissioners to launch investigations. ” and the US Merit Systems Protection Board “sort of has a quorum” because its Senate-approved chairman. Henry Kerner. is also acting vice chairman.

The article also turns to the scale of the staffing gap. It says there are about 1,300 Senate-approved positions, according to Stier’s Partnership for Public Service. The group is described as tracking more than 800 key roles. with more than 270 of them having no nominee from the Trump administration. About 100 roles, the story adds, have a nominee that has not yet been confirmed.

Even with those numbers. the article says the confirmation rate for Trump 2.0 is slightly higher than either the Biden administration or the first Trump administration. But it stresses that the core concern remains the method—how acting officials are being used to keep vacancies moving without Senate approvals at the pace or in the spirit the system was designed for.

“The throughline for Pulte,” the piece argues, is not intelligence or housing—it is his history of using his federal job to target Trump’s political enemies.

And for Stier, the lesson of the broader pattern is about loyalty and constitutional limits. He said. “This appears to be the primary lesson he learned from his first term. which is choose people who will do whatever he wants. no matter what. as opposed to choosing people who will stand up for the Constitution. the rule of law. and be capable of running these very important. complex organizations that have had huge impact on the American public.”.

As the appointment looms and lawmakers weigh their options, the question won’t just be who is temporarily in charge of intelligence next week. It will be how long “acting” becomes a governing strategy—and what the Constitution is left to do in the meantime.

This headline has been updated.

Donald Trump Bill Pulte acting director of national intelligence Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 Senate confirmation intelligence community Max Stier Partnership for Public Service Aaron Lukas foreign surveillance law