Acting DNI Bill Pulte Notes an Additional 30 Percent Staff Reduction

July 28, 2026 | Sundance | 80 Comments

July 28, 2026 | Sundance |

The entire system is bloated and needs to be eliminated. However, I will just note for the record;no one ever talked about the staffing level at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence until Director Tulsi Gabbard was appointed to head the agency and for the first time in historyutilized the legislatively created power of the office over the entire Intelligence Community.

Several years ago, CTH was outlining the unrealized power of the office; we even went further and explained in detail what changes that office could make to rein in the larger Intelligence Community, including the CIA, and not a single person in DC was ever concerned about ODNI staffing level. Suddenly Gabbard started making changes, big changes, like removing the National Intelligence Council from the CIA and simultaneously the DC system started shouting about reducing the office. It’s a little, well, ironic I guess, in a DC way.

Today, Acting DNI Bill Pulte notes another round of staff removals:

• WASHINGTON DC – […] Pulte’s announcement of a 30 percent cut, depending on the baseline for when the dismissals started,could amount to the elimination of more than 300 staff at the ODNI,which is charged with coordinating intelligence collected by the other 17 members of the U.S. spy community and overseeing their budgets.

It comes the same day the Senate is expected to vote on his full-time replacement, current top Manhattan federal prosecutor Jay Clayton, as the next head of the ODNI.

[…] Though the precise size of ODNI is classified, Tulsi Gabbard saidshe slashed ODNI’s size by roughly 40 percent percent before resigning in June, leaving the office at around 1,300 personnel.

Trump quickly signaled he wanted Pulte to go further. When the president tapped Pulte to helm the office last month,he defended the pick by saying that Pulte would be “less shackled” to make cuts because he was only there part time.

Pulte considered sweeping cuts at the National Counterterrorism Center soon after taking over, but backed off the plan, instead firing a handful of Gabbard holdovers and reassigning roughly 50 career staff from the ODNI’s intelligence analysis hub. He’s since announced a series of cuts on his social media account, thoughthe Trump administration has shared no detail publicly on the scope or justifications of any of those alleged reductions. (read more)

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/07/28/acting-dni-bill-pulte-notes-an-additional-30-percent-staff-reduction/

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/07/29/nine-in-ten-wildfires-started-by-human-hands-french-government-admits/

‘Hate,’ ‘Stupidity’: Rep. Bacon Slams Citizen Opposition to Visa Workforce Bill

Neil Munro28 Jul 2026

Retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon says “hate” and ‘stupidity” are motivating the citizens who oppose his support of a cheap labor bill for the rural economy– even as multiple other GOP representatives are quietly quitting the amnesty push.

“What polling shows us is that approx 35% HATE all immigrants … And they’re loud,” Bacon said in a July 22 tweet.

“It’s time we stand up to stupidity,” Bacon responded when the pro-investor bill was criticized by a former top official in President Donald Trump’s first administration.

Pennsylvania Rep. Glen Thompson’s Securing America’s Workforce Act (SAWA) would massively expand the number of wage-capped H-2A visa workers in the rural economy.The bill would also allow many U.S-based illegals to gain legal status by working for food companies.

“This is about replacing entire segments of American [agriculture workforce] with foreign serf labor,” Rosemary Jenks, founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, toldBreitbart News.The resulting loss of rural jobs and spending power — and the resulting out-migration of young Americans — will wreck many local businesses, including those owned by the members of many Chamber of Commerce groups, said Jenks.

So far, four of 47 GOP members have announced they are ending their support of the bill:Nebraska Rep. Mike Flood, plus North Carolina’s Rep. Tim Moore, R-N.C., Georgia’s Brian Jack, and Indiana’s Mark Messmer.

“Concerns from constituents, conservative leaders and Nebraska ag producers have made clear that provisions in the Securing America’s Workforce Act are not the right way to uphold our immigration laws,” Flood told Nebraska Public Media News. “I’m listening, and at a moment when our border is finally secure thanks to President Trump’s leadership, I’m not willing to move forward on anything that could risk our progress,,” he added.

More GOP representatives will drop the bill, William Gheen, the president of ALIPAC, a grassroots pro-American group whose members are prodding their legislators, told Breitbart News:

We believe that many of the Republican lawmakers currently co-sponsoring HR 9535 do not know about the Amnesty provisions in the bill and have not thought out the long-term impacts of changing America’s existing immigration laws to accommodate illegal migrants and their employers …This Amnesty bill would undermine America’s existing laws, border security, and mass deportation efforts by caving to big agriculture and meat packing lobby interests and selling American workers and taxpayers out once again for the illegal labor lobby.

Bacon is retiring this year, but in prior elections, he was strongly supported by the agriculture industry. His district is the Democratic-leaning city of Omaha, and includes many migrant-using businesses, such as meatpackers.

Many meatpackers used President Joe Biden’s supply of legalized refugees, quasi-legal parolees, and illegal migrants to hold down wage costs and to avoid investments in labor-saving technology.

But Trump’s low-migration policy is forcing them to raise wages and divert profit into technology. For example, in June 2025, KNLVradio.com reported that a huge JBS meatpacking firm in Iowa had signed a deal that gives pay raises, paid sick leave, and a pension plan to 26,000 meatpacking workers. The article was headlined “Groundbreaking Union Contract Brings Major Gains for JBS Workers Across the U.S.”

“I’ve been working at JBS for 10 years, and when I got the news about the pension, I was excited,” said Thelma Cruz, who works at the JBS Pork plant in Marshalltown, Iowa. “My husband also works here, and when we retire, we will both get pension checks every month.”

Higher wages for meatpackers also help Americans in other companies find higher wages for their families.

The bill defended by Bacon would allow meatpackers to hire H-2A workers instead of hiring Americans or investing in labor-saving, wage-raising technology that can help many farmers.

But Bacon has long supported mass migration into Nebraska’s job, retail, and housing markets — including by Afghanand Indian migrants. — because it helps the local businesses that supported his campaigns. For example, he is now calling for Haitian migrants to be allowed to stay in the United States for jobs.

On April 15, for example, he posted:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/07/28/hate-stupidity-rep-bacon-slams-citizen-opposition-to-visa-workforce-bill/