First the Purge, Then the Disclosure

In the fall of 2025, Bill Pulte was running the Federal Housing Finance Agency, a regulatory body that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is not an agency that typically makes national news. Then Pulte accessed the mortgage records of three Democratic officials — Letitia James, Adam Schiff, and Lisa Cook. Fannie Mae's ethics team opened an investigation. Pulte responded by purging 62 employees, including the chief ethics officer and the general counsel. The acting inspector general was removed. The mortgage material was forwarded to a U.S. Attorney, who subsequently indicted James. ^[1] The sequence — access sensitive records of political adversaries, purge the internal watchdogs who investigate, route the material to prosecutors — was complete inside a single housing finance agency. It would not stay there. The same two-step has since appeared at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department. No single document shows these were planned as a coordinated playbook. But the sequence has repeated across agencies with enough fidelity to be recognizable as a method: first remove the people who would say no, then use the authority they once guarded. At ODNI, the replication was direct. In June, Trump appointed Pulte — a former housing finance official with no national security experience and no security clearance — as acting director of national intelligence, canceling the confirmation hearing for the permanent nominee to do so. ^[2] Within days, Pulte cut 51 staff members, including six political appointees and 45 career officials, following a prior 40 percent workforce reduction under his predecessor Tulsi Gabbard. ^[3] Then, on July 1, Trump publicly authorized him to declassify intelligence records without restriction.

I think Bill will declassify. — Donald Trump

The new dimension was blanket authorization — not a specific record release, but permission to release anything. Reports indicated a White House task force planned to use the declassified intelligence to amplify the president's election claims. ^[4] At the FBI, the purge came first. In February, Director Kash Patel removed approximately 12 agents, analysts, and supervisors involved in the Jack Smith investigations into Trump's classified documents and 2020 election interference. The FBI Agents Association called the terminations unlawful and warned they destabilized the workforce. ^[5] Months later, Patel announced the public disclosure of FBI "burn bag" contents related to the Crossfire Hurricane Trump-Russia probe.

You’re going to see everything we found in that room in one way or another, be it through investigation, public trial, or disclosure to the Congress. — Kash Patel

The new dimension was the target: disclosure aimed directly at the investigations that had targeted the president himself. ^[6] At the CIA, the pattern took a different shape. Director John Ratcliffe did not purge staff and then declassify records. Instead, he retracted 19 intelligence reports produced during the Obama and Biden administrations, citing "political bias." ^[7] The move extended the logic of the two-step — controlling what the agency produces — to the analytical product itself, not just the release of existing records. It was not a clean replication, but it operated on the same premise: remove what the prior generation of professionals built, then shape what replaces it. At the Justice Department, the purge was the point. Career prosecutors who refused to pursue indictments against Trump's political opponents were removed or resigned. One, Michael Ben'Ary, was fired after stating that DOJ leaders had crossed a line.

the orders I received were inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts. — Danielle Sassoon

The department then lowered hiring standards to refill the positions — suspending the one-year legal experience requirement for prosecutors and recruiting through social media for lawyers aligned with the administration's goals. ^[8] The DOJ sequence extended the pattern without a declassification step: the purge removed the gatekeepers, and the refill ensured the replacements would not push back. ^[9] The declassification weapon was aimed at named individuals, too. In April, Gabbard used ODNI's authority to release documents about the 2019 Trump impeachment and issued criminal referrals targeting the intelligence community inspector general and the whistleblower whose complaint triggered it. Senator Mark Warner called it "a retaliatory act for whistleblowing itself." ^[10] On her final day as DNI in June, Gabbard released documents targeting Anthony Fauci, accusing him of funding gain-of-function research and lying to Congress, and framing the intelligence community as having used "deep state playbook" tactics. ^[11] While loyalist directors declassify at will, the administration is simultaneously working to criminalize unauthorized disclosure. In May, the White House proposed a government-wide non-disclosure agreement for all federal employees, with criminal penalties for non-signers. ^[12]

This proposed NDA is another attempt by the administration to purge the civil service of nonpartisan career employees and replace them with loyalists who won’t speak out against waste, fraud and abuse. — Everett Kelley

In July, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth created a joint DOJ-DoD task force to prosecute media leaks. ^[13]

We’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘national security, give it up or go to jail.’ — Donald Trump

The administration has not described these as a coordinated system, and no single document ties the NDA proposal to the declassification authorizations. But taken together, the separate actions push classified information flow in one direction. Authorized disclosure targeting adversaries opens wide. Unauthorized disclosure faces criminal penalties. The NDA remains a proposal, not enacted law, and the leak task force has not eliminated leaks. The framework, if enacted and enforced, is designed to ensure that the only classified information reaching the public is what the loyalist directors choose to release. In July, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the firing of 19 career intelligence officers, ruling that CIA and ODNI violated the Fifth Amendment's due process clause and their own internal regulations. Intelligence directors, the court found, do not have "unfettered discretion" to fire staff without cause. ^[14] The administration is expected to appeal. But the Schedule Policy/Career reclassification — a June executive order that converted roughly 8,000 senior federal workers to at-will employees removable without cause — gives the administration additional legal footing for personnel actions that does not depend on how the 4th Circuit ruling is resolved. ^[15] The NDA proposal would add criminal exposure for unauthorized disclosure on top of existing employment law. The court has pushed back. The administration has laid other paths. Whether the courts block those too is the question the next round of rulings will answer.