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Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte has begun cutting staff at the nation’s top intelligence office, axing six political appointees and pushing dozens of career officials out of their jobs.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, is the body that sits at the top of the US intelligence community and is responsible for coordinating its 18 separate agencies, from the CIA and NSA to the FBI’s intelligence arm. Congress created it in 2004 in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, after investigations found that the various spy agencies had been operating in silos, hoarding what they knew and failing to share critical information with one another. That left warning signs scattered across the government that nobody connected before the attacks. The whole point of the ODNI was to fix that, putting one office in charge of making sure intelligence actually flows between agencies rather than getting gatekept or buried. The director also serves as the president’s principal intelligence adviser and oversees the President’s Daily Brief, the highly classified rundown delivered to the president each morning that pulls together input from across all the agencies.

What’s going on now: According to multiple news outlets citing sources, Pulte fired six appointees tied to former Director Tulsi Gabbard and sent 45 career officials on joint assignment back to their home agencies since taking over Friday. One source called the cuts thoughtful and methodical, said Pulte had resisted deputies pushing for more, and noted that the National Counterterrorism Center was untouched, though earlier reports had flagged it as a major target.

Trump installed Pulte, who also runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency and has no national security experience, with a mandate to “execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office.”

The move divided lawmakers. Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton said the office had “grown far beyond its original mandate,” and a Republican staffer said Pulte’s willingness to “gut the bureaucracy” was “a feature, not a bug.” Democrats warned the reductions could endanger Americans. Senator Mark Warner and Representative Jim Himes told Pulte large cuts risk “jeopardizing the mission” of an agency built to prevent another 9/11, with Himes warning that “willy-nilly firing people” raises the odds of a terrorist attack.

Warner went further, calling Pulte a “national security threat” and citing reports he sought to take the classified daily brief to an unsecured location.

This all comes as Pulte’s appointment has already pissed off many in Washington, with Democrats refusing to reauthorize FISA Section 702 over him, letting the surveillance power lapse this month. Trump then nominated Jay Clayton as permanent director but abruptly halted his confirmation hearing, while Warner introduced legislation to block future acting officials like Pulte from leading the office.