For decades, unelected bureaucrats have run Washington like their own private kingdom. They answer to no president. They ignore Congress. And they couldn’t care less what voters think. Nowhere is this arrogance more concentrated than inside the intelligence community, where career operatives have burrowed so deep into the machinery of government that accountability has become a foreign concept.

Well, someone finally showed up with a sledgehammer. The man the American people sent back to the White House made a move last week that the protected class never anticipated — and for once, campaign promises are being honored with actual urgency. Funny how that works when you send a businessman instead of a politician.

From The Post Millennial:

Bill Pulte, who began serving as acting Director of National Intelligence on Friday, has reportedly begun carrying out cuts to staff within the office. A source familiar with the matter told CNN that the cuts began on Monday, adding, “the deep state firings have begun.”

Ahead of taking office, Pulte was reportedly looking at cutting hundreds of jobs within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Sources told CNN that Pulte appeared at the office one day before he was officially set to start and asked for a list of every employee in the office.

Read that again. Pulte didn’t wait for his official start date. He didn’t schedule a round of introductory coffees with middle managers. He walked in early, demanded the complete employee roster, and started swinging. Washington hasn’t seen that kind of energy in a long time — maybe ever.

A businessman, not a bureaucrat

President Trump left zero ambiguity about the mission. On Truth Social, he wrote: “I have named William Pulte to be Acting Director of National Intelligence, who will take over on June 19th, and have asked him to execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office, reverting staff to their home agencies.”

And Pulte moved fast. Every office inside ODNI was directed to rank its personnel by Monday. This isn’t some haphazard purge. It’s the kind of disciplined, methodical restructuring that any competent executive would undertake when inheriting a bloated operation. The private sector does this routinely. Washington acts like it’s a war crime.

The swamp protects its own

Predictably — almost comically — Democrats rushed to shield their bureaucratic allies. Senator Mark Warner and Representative Jim Himes dashed off a letter warning that cuts would “jeopardize” ODNI’s mission. They even took a swipe at Pulte’s “lack of experience within the Intelligence Community.”

Ah, the credentialist card. In Beltway parlance, “experience” means you’ve soaked in the same dysfunctional system long enough to defend its every failure. This is the intelligence community that missed the warning signs before 9/11, catastrophically botched WMD assessments in Iraq, and spent years pursuing politically motivated investigations against a sitting president. But sure — the real danger is the new guy who asks too many questions.

Here’s what Warner and Himes conveniently left out of their breathless letter: reports indicate the National Counterterrorism Center wasn’t even touched by the initial firings. Their entire argument — that Pulte is recklessly gutting counterterrorism — collapsed before the ink dried. The cuts are surgical, not indiscriminate. But fearmongering is easier than honesty.

Every last one of them

These firings are a welcome development. Long overdue, frankly. But they cannot be where this ends. The embedded operatives who weaponized intelligence for political purposes need to go. The bureaucrats who prioritized empire-building over the national interest need to go. The paper-pushers who treated their GS-15 desk like a lifetime appointment need to go. All of them.

The American people didn’t send Donald Trump back to Washington to make modest adjustments. They sent him to dismantle a system that had been working against them for years. Pulte seems to understand the assignment.

The deep state firings have begun. They shouldn’t stop until the last one is out the door.

Key Takeaways

• Bill Pulte wasted no time launching deep state firings at the ODNI.
• Democrat objections rely on credentialism, not genuine national security concerns.
• Early reports confirm counterterrorism operations remain untouched by the cuts.
• Every embedded bureaucrat who weaponized intelligence should be shown the door next.

Sources: The Post Millennial, CNN