bill pulte, a trump loyalist with no prior intelligence experience, took over as head of the office of the director of national intelligence and immediately began firing staff, with the acting director of the national counterterrorism center among those affected. odni is the coordination layer connecting all 18 u.s. intelligence agencies — its stated purpose is to prevent the inter-agency blindness that preceded the september 11 attacks. abrupt leadership replacement and mass firings at this specific node is structurally significant because the damage is to coordination capacity, not any single agency.