Oh, how we have fallen.

50 U.S. Code § 3023 – Director of National Intelligence

(a)Director of National Intelligence

(1)

There is a Director of National  Intelligence who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Any individual nominated for appointment as Director of National shall have extensive national security expertise.

The first Director of National Intelligence, 2005 – John Negroponte

• B.A. from Yale University, 1960.
• Served as Ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations, and Iraq.
• Served twice on the National Security Council staff, first as director for Vietnam in the Nixon Administration and then as deputy national security advisor under President Reagan. 
• Served as a Deputy Secretary of State, first for Oceans and Fisheries (1977) and then for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1980).
• As a junior diplomat, had assignments in Hong Kong, Vietnam, France, Ecuador and Greece.
• Executive vice president of the McGraw-Hill Companies,1997 – 2001
• Senior research fellow in grand strategy and as a lecturer in international relations at Yale University.
• Chairman of the Council of the Americas/Americas Society, a New York-based NGO which advocates for commercial and cultural relations in the Western Hemisphere.
• Co-chairman of the US-Philippines Society
• Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA). 

Trump’s Director of National Intelligence appointee, 2026 – Bill Pulte

• President of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity chapter at Northwestern University, 2010; Graduated from Northwestern with a BA in Broadcast Journalism, 2010
• Inherited his grandfather’s home construction company
• No experience in the intelligence community.
• Was a Trump mega-donor.
• Named by Trump Director of Federal Housing Finance and Chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 2025.

Enough said?