'You should be worried': Hillary Clinton says Bill Pulte should be kept in dark

WASHINGTON, DC: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she hopes career officials and political appointees across US intelligence agencies are "slow-walking or refusing to share information" with acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Bill Pulte.

President Donald Trump's appointment of Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on June 19 sparked intense bipartisan backlash over the lack of experience in the field and misuse of power.

Hillary Clinton criticizes Bill Pulte's intelligence role

Hillary Clinton, appearing on the Wednesday, July 1, episode of 'Defending Democracy with Marc Elias' podcast, accused Bill Pulte of leading a partisan takeover of the intelligence community.

“You should definitely be worried about everything. This is a naked partisan takeover of the Director of National Intelligence, which was formed, following 9/11, to better try to coordinate the various intelligence agencies,” Clinton said.

“We missed a lot of signals that we should have paid attention to leading up to 9/11, and it was thought, in this legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security and the DNI, that this would be a better coordinating mechanism,” she explained.

“I think there’s a lot of problems with it, but it is at the hub of all of our intelligence. The DNI has access to everything, everything that they want to see,” she added.

“I mean, I hope there are career and even political appointees, in various agencies, that are slow-walking or refusing to share information with Pulte,” she said.

Notably, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, July 1, that he has given Bill Pulte broad authority to release classified government records, revealing that he personally told the acting intelligence chief to “declassify whatever you want.”

Democrats criticize Bill Pulte over mortgage records

Bill Pulte began his job as DNI last month and quickly carried out Trump’s wish to lay off staffers at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Democrats have gone after Pulte for using his role as Federal Housing Finance Agency director to assist Trump in using mortgage records to target the president’s political opponents.

“You’re going to turn the keys of all of our intelligence agencies over [to] somebody so grossly unqualified who’s shown he’s willing to take information and misuse it — secret information,” Sen Mark Warner (D-Va) said during an appearance on 'Fox News Sunday' last month.