MAGA Loyalist Bill Pulte Tapped to Be New U.S. Spy Chief, Led Efforts to Target Trump Critics

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]I also want to ask you as the new former New Jersey Attorney General, President Trump's named the MAGA loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence replacing Tulsi Gabbard who announced her resignation recently.

[00:00:14]Pulte has no known background in intelligence. He's been serving and apparently will continue to as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency where he used his position to join Trump's campaign of retribution against his political enemies making criminal referrals over claims of mortgage fraud among those targeted California Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve officials Jerome Powell and Lisa Cook. So, who is Pulte um from the same state as you Matt Platkin and I'm wondering if you can give us a little background, right? Um is a major developer. I didn't say intelligence official, uh housing developer in New Jersey right around Bedminster, the golf course and all over New Jersey, Pulte Homes, etc. Can you tell us anything about him from your perspective as another uh person from New Jersey who was the Attorney General?

[00:01:11]>> Well, I I've never met uh Mr. Pulte um but I certainly know his his work and I have to say this is yet another deeply alarming appointment. As you noted, no background in law enforcement, no background in intelligence, never served in Congress, not somebody who has any of the requisite experience for this incredibly important office. And apparently he's going to continue doing a whole bunch of other jobs, jobs which by the way he has used as you noted to weaponize his position against public servants including my very good friend Attorney General Tish James who they tried baselessly to prosecute because she did her job in New York. So, this is somebody who should concern everyone.

[00:01:51]There's been bipartisan backlash against this appointment already. It's only a day old and I predict that somebody who's going to face some real challenge through the confirmation proceedings.

[00:02:01]>> And finally, I wanted to put this question to Judge Nancy Gertner, the retired federal judge. We're talking to you at a time of mass deportations, heightened abuses by federal ICE and immigration agents.

[00:02:16]You've written about this and described many federal immigration enforcement tactics as {quote} plainly illegal. Um your final comments today, and given where we are today, what are the legal options to hold ICE accountable?

[00:02:39]>> There are numbers of cases across the country in which ICE tactics have been targeted in very varying degrees of success. You know, the challenges to the essentially stopping people who are speaking Spanish or look Hispanic in California. There have been challenges to the detention facilities. There have been challenges to the deportation of of individuals without holding bond hearings. The Supreme Court is going to get some of these challenges, but what is significant to your listeners is that the Supreme Court can't get them all.

[00:03:18]And the the lower courts have been the district courts have been extraordinary in standing up to these abuses. The problem is that for we the the law really did not match the didn't match how what was going on what's going on with respect to the Trump ICE agents. In other words, when I was on the bench, there were very limited causes causes of action against ICE agents, limited ways in which the federal courts could affect them, and that was because ICE was a different agency. Because ICE was not affecting mass speed deportations. ICE was not ignoring uh judges orders.

[00:03:57]Uh the Well, you're seeing now is an effort for the courts to catch up to those uh abuses, and they are legislation's going to be needed to to make this even more clear uh so that people can so that essentially people can can sue for damages against ICE agents, but we're seeing actions across the country uh in the district courts uh which ICE sometimes follows and sometimes doesn't. Uh it's an extraordinary situation, and I didn't confront this with when I was on the bench cuz I wasn't dealing with an administration whose goal was to deport people uh who have asylum claims, uh who may even be green card holders, uh efforts to denaturalize people.

[00:04:46]Uh I wasn't facing that, and the law has to catch up.

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