Overview
- Lawmakers clashed during a State Department budget hearing when Rep. Bill Keating loudly rebuked Secretary of State Marco Rubio after Rubio said he had never heard of Bill Pulte in an intelligence context.
- Pulte was named by the administration as acting director of national intelligence and critics at the hearing said he lacks intelligence experience for a role that oversees the U.S. intelligence community.
- Keating accused Pulte of widely reported misuse of confidential information that he said led to prosecutions of the president’s political opponents, an allegation made on the House floor during the exchange.
- Keating also raised the hiring of Elias Irizarry, described at the hearing as a convicted Jan. 6 participant who was placed in a Pentagon counterterrorism position, a claim Rubio said did not ring a bell.
- Committee Chairman Rep. Brian Mast declined to intervene when Keating complained about interruptions and lost time, and the episode has intensified congressional scrutiny of the administration’s vetting and oversight of sensitive security appointments.