Maintenance in progress

bill pulte was appointed acting director of national intelligence and arrived early to begin firing staff across the office; trump publicly stated he ordered the cuts. the dni role was created after september 11 to coordinate the 18 us intelligence agencies under a single civilian authority. appointment of a figure with no national security background to lead that structure, followed immediately by mass personnel reduction, represents an unusual disruption to the interagency coordination layer.

us government reporting, washington dc