Sen. James Lankford did his best to downplay the amount of damage and the amount of time he could spend doing that damage while defending Trump's appointment of Bill Pulte as the acting Director of National Intelligence.
Lankford admitted that Pulte wasn't qualified and skirted answering whether he would vote for him if he were nominated for the permanent position, and had the nerve to pretend he gives one iota about national security with an unqualified political hack as the head of our intelligence agencies.
Here's Lankford with Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream pretending Pulte will only be in there for a "few weeks to a month" when he knows full well the appointment, which will take affect on June 30th is allowed to go for 210 days, which will take us into January of 2027.
BREAM: As we're also watching the FISA issue — I talked about this with Senator Warner. Section 702, this critical surveillance tool, is going to expire Friday night if there's not a deal. He said it's about Bill Pulte being nominated as acting DNI, at least tapped for that position in the short term. Here's a bit of what he said.
WARNER: We couldn't go without 702 for six months. But for somebody like me, who's terribly concerned about interference in our elections this year — are we going to turn the keys of all our intelligence agencies over to somebody so grossly unqualified, who has shown he's willing to take secret information and misuse it?
BREAM: He says Pulte is misusing information. He also points to the law, which states: "Any individual nominated for appointment as Director of National Intelligence shall have extensive national security expertise." We're not there yet — this is an acting role — but under that standard, do you think Bill Pulte is qualified?
LANKFORD: No, he's not qualified for the long-term position. That's been clear. He has no national security background.
This is a short-term interim role — a few weeks to a month — to step in while Tulsi Gabbard had to step aside to care for her husband, who is going through medical treatment. We pray for them and their family and are grateful for their service.
Bill Pulte is someone the president trusts to step up and manage the agency for a few weeks. The president is still interviewing other candidates for the long-term position, and I would assume that person would have extensive experience.
To be clear: refusing to vote on FISA because you disagree with an interim appointment is literally sending a message to al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others that we're not watching them right now. I think that is unwise. It sends a terrible message about national security to the entire world — to the Iranian people seeking freedom from their regime, and in light of potential attacks on us — to say we're going to stop watching what's happening globally because we're unhappy with a temporary appointment. Our national security is more important than that.
BREAM: Would you vote no on Pulte for the DNI slot permanently if the president did nominate him?
LANKFORD: The president has already said he won't nominate him permanently. He has several people he's actively interviewing. This is an interim placeholder appointment for an office that doesn't actually conduct intelligence gathering — that's done by the other agencies.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is a coordinating office. It's a bureaucratic entity, and frankly, there's wide sentiment for getting rid of it entirely, because it slows down intelligence gathering across all our agencies. It was an experiment put in place after 9/11, and I think in the days ahead its footprint will shrink. Many of the people detailed there work full time in other agencies — let's get them back in the field instead of doing bureaucracy.
BREAM: We'll watch and see how FISA plays out this week.
Lankford knows he'll never be asked a follow up on any of this after Trump keeps this flack in there for the full 210 days.
