Remember Bill Pulte? He was the nepo-baby who bought his way into Trump’s good graces to get a low-level, unsexy job as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which he then boot-strapped into a covert spy operation for Trump’s vengeance campaign by illegally accessing mortgage applications of Trump’s enemies to try to come up with crimes so they could be prosecuted. Aside from giving Trump money, there’s no surer way to endear oneself to Trump than being a cog in his vanity and vengeance machine. Pulte was more than happy to be such a cog.

And he’s now being rewarded for his faithfulness and faithlessness.

President Trump on Tuesday named Bill Pulte, who has pressed for investigations into the president’s foes, to serve as the acting director of national intelligence, giving him oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The position of DNI was an experiment after 9/11 to overcome the purported lack of coordination between intelligence agencies that failed to detect the terrorist attack before it happened. Congress created the post in 2001, requiring its holder to possess extensive national security expertise. Tulsi Gabbard, Vladimir Putin’s first choice for DNI, lacked the qualifications for the position, but in the scheme of unqualified cabinet level posts, was hardly the worst. With Gabbard gone, Trump saw his opening.

The law that created the director of national intelligence position stipulates that the officeholder should “have extensive national security expertise.” Mr. Pulte clearly fails that test. Mr. Trump has appointed him in an acting role, which means that the Senate does not need to confirm him. Unless the president formally nominates him, he can serve in the job for only 210 days.

A couple senators mused whether Pulte even had a security clearance, no less no qualifications whatsoever in national security. But then, it’s not as if Trump cared whether Pulte could perform the putative functions of DNI. Coordinate his daily intelligence briefings? As if Trump cared or was capable of focusing on such boring matters that weren’t all about him. Rather, Pulte brought the one thing Trump really wanted to the job.

Mr. Pulte’s one evident qualification is his eagerness to advance the president’s political revenge campaign. In his current job, Mr. Pulte is supposed to help alleviate the nation’s housing shortage. Instead, he used his platform to attack the president’s enemies.

There appears to be a strong likelihood that Pulte would have even less support in the Senate for confirmation than did Matt Gaetz, which led to Pam Bondi’s confirmation as Attorney General and the upcoming nomination of Trump’s criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche as her replacement. But the acting DNI doesn’t need confirmation, and has 210 days to do whatever he can to demonstrate his fealty to Trump. Therein lies the problem.

As DNI, Pulte will be able to access pretty much every secret about every person in the United States of America. Not only all the information and documentation the federal government collected about you over the years, with promises that it will be secure and never used for ulterior purposes against you. Think FISA intercepts. Think FBI background checks. Think all the information that no one is supposed to have but does, atop your medical, credit card, pharma, tax and employment data.

Pulte may not know squat about national security, but he knows all he needs to know about who hates his lord and who needs to be “got.” And if there’s anybody thrilled to pull a Lavrentiy Beria on Trump’s behalf, it’s Bill Pulte. The 210 days before he needs confirmation is more than enough time to run an intelligence colonoscopy on Trump’s enemies and find something that smells awful, even if it’s got no more substance than his effort to nail Tish James.

That is 210 days too many, and Congress should act to force Mr. Pulte’s immediate removal. The past week has demonstrated that congressional Republicans do have leverage over the president. They forced him to back off his plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to reward his political allies, including many who have broken the law. Republicans did so by threatening not to pass legislation that Mr. Trump wants passed.

The New York Times may be a bit too optimistic about the demise of the $1,776 slush fund, which Trump says he “still loves” as it pays for his private militia without costing him a dime. But to the extent Blanche claims it’s off the table, Congress finally decided to do something to stop one of Trump’s most egregious acts. There are still a great many egregious acts as well, but who can keep track?

There appears to be some will on the Republican side of the Senate floor to stop Trump’s putting Pulte in the DNI post, but with the laundry list of nightmares from Iran war that isn’t to the Iran ceasefire that isn’t to the Iran peace deal that isn’t to Epstein, will Pulte be the hill upon which Republican are willing to die? After all, it’s only 210 days.