Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence under President Donald Trump, has been on a firing spree since taking the role on June 19, but his past personnel choices at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) are raising serious questions. Pulte, a wealthy housing executive with no intelligence background, brought on a Michigan restaurant owner convicted of a felony sex crime and a former Senate staffer who posted about cocaine and heroin use on Reddit.
Convicted Felon Hired as Consultant
Last year, Pulte hired Mark Zarkin as a consultant to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to a November 2024 Reuters exclusive. Zarkin, a prominent Detroit-area Trump supporter with no mortgage sector experience, was convicted in 2000 of a felony sex crime involving a sexual encounter with a “mentally incapacitated” woman. He served jail time and was listed on Michigan’s sex offender registry for about nine years, per a 2019 Detroit Free Press investigation. A judge later overturned his conviction in an “unusual” and “rare” case.
Zarkin is also the subject of a June 2025 whistleblower lawsuit alleging he and a local police chief schemed to bribe Trump to pardon a New York associate convicted of banking fraud. The suit claims they traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with “high-profile millionaires.” The police chief was fired in September after an investigation found multiple violations, though the probe did not address the pardon scheme due to “inherent limitations” and “possible involvement of law enforcement.”
Zarkin’s FHFA work involved joining Pulte on visits to Fannie Mae offices and, in March 2025, escorting a film crew to shoot misleading footage about employees not coming to work, later aired by Fox News, per a December 2025 Reuters report. Zarkin was no longer a consultant as of that date.
FHFA Threatens Legal Action
An FHFA spokesperson claimed the Reuters story was wrong, asserting a different Mark Zarkin worked for the agency and that they were considering suing Reuters for defamation. The spokesperson told HuffPost, “This Mark Zarkin was never an employee or consultant of FHFA and anything along those lines is defamatory.” They did not respond to requests for details about the other alleged Mark Zarkin. Reuters stood by its reporting, with a spokesperson saying, “We stand by our reporting.” Zarkin declined to be interviewed but texted Reuters, “I have never been employed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. I also have no criminal record.”
Former Staffer with Drug Posts Hired
Around the same time, Pulte hired Aaron Kofsky, who four months earlier was fired from his job as a financial policy adviser to then-Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). A October 2024 WIRED story revealed Kofsky posted on Reddit under a pseudonym for nearly a decade about using cocaine, heroin, Ritalin, MDMA, and other drugs. One post mocked Vance as “a Trump book licker,” while another gave advice on transporting drugs through TSA. “Coke then opiates is always my go-to,” Kofsky wrote. Vance suspended Kofsky the day the story broke, and he was later fired. Kofsky called the reporting “smearing an America First staffer.”
Kofsky was hired at FHFA in March 2025 during a purge of career staffers. He is now listed as senior associate director at the FHFA Division of Housing Mission and Goals. The FHFA spokesperson did not comment on his hire.
Bipartisan Criticism of Pulte’s Role
Pulte’s appointment to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has drawn bipartisan criticism. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said, “He’s not qualified for the long-term position; that’s been clear on this. He has no national security background.” Pulte, who lacked a security clearance when tapped, can only serve as acting director for up to 210 days without Senate confirmation. Trump said he expects Pulte to stay a month or two and directed him to declassify “almost everything.”
